


beware of your youth, darling

by brokendrums



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Dystopia, M/M, Organ Transplantation, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:38:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendrums/pseuds/brokendrums
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall, Harry and Louis had always been told at school that their lives were filled with purpose, that they were special and that some day soon they'd be able to give up their lives so another could live on. It was supposed to be aspirational but from Niall's new home in a dark and damp farmhouse on the outskirts of town, Niall couldn't help but think it was futile. The clock ticks on. </p><p>A Never Let Me Go AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beware of your youth, darling

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the premise of [Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_\(novel\)) and thus contains themes of forced organ donation, loss and death. I purposefully didn't re-read the book recently but I have recently watched the film and therefore there is some direct influence blending throughout the fic. 
> 
> Title from Youth - Ben Khan. 
> 
> All my thanks to [littlecather](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecather/pseuds/littlecather) for not only sparking me to write this by asking me very innocently one day _who would be kath, tommy and ruth?_ but also for betaing and offering some kind comments on trickier bits! Thank you :)

“Hey,” Harry says quietly, popping his head up past the bottom of the bannister. It rises up into a wooden orb, slightly shiny from the rub of the coats that go on and off it again day after day. Niall glances up from where he’s pulling on his boots. 

“Hi, Harry,” Niall says, just as quiet. Harry’s always quiet around him, not like the boisterous front he puts on sometimes around Louis and the others. Niall’s not sure why he feels like he has to be shy. 

“Where are you going?” Harry asks. He’s half hiding behind the railing for the stairs, his loose jumper hanging off his side with the way he’s standing crooked, his body bent sideways. There’s a bit of hair hanging around his face, curling where he’s letting it grow. They weren’t allowed to grow their hair long at Briar Hill but Niall thinks it suits him. 

“Just going for a walk,” Niall says, going back to fixing his boots. He can’t allow himself to look at Harry too long these days. There’s an endless supply of wellies at Meadowside. Wellies that once belonged to the endless supply of boys and girls who have stopped there on their way to the completion centres. 

“Really?” Harry asks, his voice disbelieving. Niall glances up to catch how Harry’s eyeing the ball that Niall’s got in the four legs of the chair he’s sitting on. 

Niall grins, ducking his eyes at being caught out. “Okay,” he concedes. “A kick about.”

Harry does the little nervous shifting of weight he does sometimes. “A solo kick about?”

Niall glances up, his fingers pausing on the rubber lip of his boots. The inside of them are scratchy from the waterproofing. “No,” he says, trying to read what’s going on behind Harry’s eyes. Harry never wanted to play football back at Briar Hill, he was always picked last for the team until he stopped playing altogether. “You’re more than welcome --”

Harry’s already grinning, loping forward to pull his coat from the many that are hanging behind the door. It’s damp today, not raining yet but the clouds hang heavy and there’s a breeze that makes Niall want to curl into the tartan lining of his own mac and they’re still in the hallway.

He’s getting bored though, stuck in the house all day. At least at Briar Hill there was things to do -- geography class even if it was mind numbing, rugby out on the lawn when it was dry, drawing elephants and lions in chalk for the gallery and then dinner at 6. It was so structured and Niall likes it, likes it better than the aimless way they spend the afternoons here left to their own devices. 

Niall knows the point of big houses like these -- to enjoy a little bit of free time before your notice comes, to grow up out of school and use all those skills they taught you in classrooms. Niall can’t help but feel like he’s wasting it. 

Harry doesn’t say anything as they head out into the front yard. There’s a few of the farm workers hanging about the out buildings but none of them pay them any attention as they cross the yard and head out into the fields. Niall keeps the ball under his arm, the firm pressure of it reassuring against his palm. Harry grins, turns his face up to the sky. He’s nearly skipping, his hands swinging as they follow the worn path up towards the grass. 

Niall doesn’t find himself struggling to think of something to say. The constant need for small talk back at the house with the others -- those who never went to Briar Hill -- is grating. There’s only so many times Niall can go over how the weather is today and how nice it is to have your breakfast whenever you want. 

The others watch the television but it gives Niall a sore head, the colours and the inane chatter and fake laughter. Louis loves it, Niall’s seen him laugh along, Harry following suit hesitantly. 

Niall sticks to his walks and his football. He fills the time. He drinks his tea and reads about his teams in the paper -- Derby County is doing well this season. He listens to Harry and Louis have sex next door and pretends he doesn’t care. He helps around the yard, flips through magazines, sweeps his room when it gets dusty. He’s having fun, supposedly. 

Up ahead, Harry jumps into a puddle. And Niall laughs. 

*

The novelty of cooking your own food diminishes when you have to do dishes for fifteen. Niall had started to fetch the groceries from Mr Higgins every week, helped wash all the vegetables for Gemma who does most of the cooking. She’s been here the longest. The fact that her and her boyfriend have lasted so long is rampant gossip amongst the others. Somehow, that meant that Niall became part of the kitchen team and most days ended with him elbow deep in bubbles, scrubbing grease off of pots and pans. 

“You could become a carer, you know,” Gemma says, quietly one night when Niall’s fingers are turning pruny from the water. “If you learnt how to drive.”

“Why would I become a carer?” Niall asks, setting a plate behind the last. It drips onto the draining board that doesn’t drain properly, a little puddle of soapy water growing down the bench. Gemma drops a tea towel onto it to soak it up. 

“I’ve seen how you look at them,” Gemma whispers. She’s got a wave of dark hair and an accent that hasn’t came from Briar Hill. In some lights she sort of looks like Harry, like their Originals could have been related. Niall remembers learning about it back in his classes -- brothers and sisters -- a concept foreign to him, even now. He supposes his Briar Hill classmates are his brothers and sisters. Harry and Louis. But that doesn’t sit right either.

Niall feels himself flush, his skin nearly as hot as the water his hands are in. He doesn’t look at her, keeps focused on scrubbing gravy off the plate. They had had a roast today, because that’s what normal people do on a Sunday. 

Niall doesn’t think Sunday is any different to any other day. 

“You can’t look at them like that,” Gemma says, leaning in so no one can overhear. They won’t -- they’re all watching the television. 

Niall frowns at the suds. It’s dark outside and if he glances up, he can see their reflection in the dark window. “Why not?” He asks and regrets it. He should’ve asked _look like what_. Gemma’s eyes gleam.

He’s noticed Gemma getting closer to them, throwing that protective hand onto Harry’s shoulder or laughing with Louis as they make tea on the stove. Sometimes he catches Louis trying to imitate the way Gemma cuddles into John, a hand to the knee or a grip around the wrist. 

“Because what they’ve got is real love,” Gemma hisses. “Like John and me. You need to let them have it while they have the time.”

Time. 

It all came down the _time_. Counting down the time for dinner at 6 at Briar Hill, bare knees under old wooden tables, climbing over benches to sit next to each other while they ate lumpy mash and plates of peas. A bottle of milk and your vitamin pill. The time until leaving Briar Hill, leaving Meadowside, the time until the first donation stretching out indefinitely until your time is suddenly cut short. 

“I’m not doing anything,” Niall says uselessly. 

Gemma ignores him. “What we’ve got. All of us that are in love is special. Special enough for a deferral.”

Niall frowns, glances up at her. She’s looking at him expectantly, her mouth open slightly. Harry does that sometimes too -- says something leading in the hope that you’ll just fill in the rest of the sentence for him. 

“What’s a deferral?” Niall asks, confused by the glimmer of hope in her eye. 

Gemma’s shoulders fall. “You’ve never heard of a deferral? When they pick couples who are in love with each other to defer their donations for a few years.”

Niall shrugs his shoulders, his hands dripping suds as he takes them out of the water. They were never told anything about deferrals at school. 

Gemma’s eyebrows crumple into a frown and her expression turns sour. “Maybe they only tell the ones who are in a love.”

Niall snorts bitterly. Gemma has a way of riling him up when he least expects it. Niall had been looking forward to cleaning down the sides in the kitchen and making himself a cup of tea and heading to bed. Now, he’ll spend the night fretting about deferrals, trying to remember if any of the teachers ever even slipped it into conversation. He’ll listen as the rest of the house quietens down for bed -- the television will click off, the light in the landing will turn out, Harry and Louis will moan all night until Niall passes out. Niall shakes his head and says through gritted teeth. “Better ask Harry and Louis then.”

“They deserve it,” Gemma adds softly, scooping the tea towel up off the soaking bench and dropping it by the stove to dry. It’ll stink of damp by morning. “They’re in love.”

Niall scrubs at his plate. Bites his tongue on asking why doesn’t _he_ deserve it. 

He’s still scrubbing when Harry comes into the kitchen, plonking himself down at the head of the table. “Are you finished with these?” he asks quietly, holding up the cover of one of the gardening magazines Niall had found. It’s not recent -- as far as Niall can tell. There’s a faded 2008 where the dogeared corner is starting to crack away to the white paper below and the television tells him that it’s 2010 now. Niall doesn’t care -- gardens look pretty whatever time of the year. He’d taken to ripping some of the prettier ones out and sticking them up over the cracks in his bedroom wall but some of them have started to peel away, growing wrinkled from the patches of damp near the window. 

“Yeah,” Niall says, turning back to finishing the dishes. In the living room, people start to laugh at the television. It’s loud and grating and Niall grits his teeth against the urge to slam the door between the two rooms shut. 

Niall sets the last pan up onto the drying rack with a soft twang and sets about finding a new teatowel to dry his hands. Behind him, Harry starts ripping a rosebush edged lawn in Chelsea out of the magazine. 

“What are you doing?” Niall asks, coming to stop beside him. He’s dripping bubbles onto the front of his shirt but he doesn’t care. 

Harry glances up at him, his face unsure. “Making a puzzle.”

“Oh,” Niall says quietly, dropping into the seat next to him. He wipes his hands hastily on the front of his jeans and reaches for another magazine to leaf through. He can still feel that tight irritation from his conversation with Gemma but he pushes it away, focuses on what Harry is doing. 

He’s seen Harry do this before, just not for a long time. They used to sit on the floor between their beds in the dormitory at Briar Hill and Harry would make puzzles. He’d rip a picture -- something Louis or Niall had painted that afternoon in their free ‘creative’ time -- into little pieces and jumble them up until none of them made sense and try to put it together again. Normally he’d get bored half way through because it would be too easy or too hard once Louis caught on and was determined to paint the most ridiculous swirls of colour. 

Harry didn’t paint at creative time. He’d sit at his desk and stare glumly at the paints while everyone else got stuck in, his pencil poised on the sheet of paper. After, he’d have scribbled a few lines and sentences but then scrumple the paper up and put it in the bin before Niall could read it. 

“Just stories,” Harry would’ve said, his shoulders hunched up defensively as they had made their way down to dinner. “They don’t matter.” And Niall wouldn’t have pushed it. 

“Do you still write your stories?” Niall pushes now, glancing over an article about something called topiary. There’s a man standing underneath a large bird, it’s wings spread in evergreen glory. He’s holding a pair of shears, the blades glinting in the sun. Niall always wonders how it’s so sunny in magazines. 

Harry hesitates, his hands paused over the paper. “Not so much, anymore.”

Niall nods and doesn’t push. Niall never pushes him. From the corner of his eye he can see Harry’s shoulders drop. 

It’s on the tip of his tongue -- to just ask if Harry’s ever heard of a deferral. If he’s been offered one because of how he’s with Louis. Maybe they do only talk to the people who are in love. Maybe they _are_ special enough to get some extra time. 

Harry quirks an eyebrow at him, his mouth turning up into a quizzical smile. “What?”

“Do --” Niall starts, feeling breathless all of a sudden. Harry cocks his head, his hair falling over his forehead. “Do you want some tea?”

Harry laughs, nods at him. Niall smiles, his stomach sinking further than before as he gets up to fill the kettle. 

*

Mr Higgins had eyed him warily when Niall cornered him in the yard after breakfast one day. He’d just been to deliver the vegetables -- like clockwork -- when Niall had asked to have a word. Mr Higgins was from the outside world, Niall could tell by his greying hair and his surname. Donors weren’t allowed the luxuries of aging or belonging. 

“You want to drive my van?” Mr Higgins asks nervously. His eyes flick over Niall’s face, drops to his mouth when he speaks as if he can’t believe that Niall can master that ability.

“I want to learn,” Niall agrees with him, keeping his eyes resolutely on Mr Higgins’ as he surveys other parts of Niall’s body. Niall’s arms, his torso hidden in his drab patched clothes, his feet in the loafers they were able to take from Briar Hill. Harry and Louis have matching pairs, worn away at the sole because they’ve been here nearly a year. “To drive, yes. I want to become a carer.”

Mr Higgins gives an involuntary twitch. 

“I can pay you somehow,” Niall tries, suddenly worried that Mr Higgins will refuse. He hasn’t got a lot of money, it’s just something he knows from the roleplays they did in school where Niall would order tea after tea after tea in the little pretend cafes they staged on Saturdays. Harry would go next, ordering a tea to match. “I can give you something? Do something for you instead?”

“Give me something?” Mr Higgins says, his voice raising. He looks angry, his eyes growing sharp.

Niall doesn’t know what to say and it’s in a jittery nervousness that makes him blurt out, “Yeah, maybe a lung or a kidney someday.”

Mr Higgins’ jaw drops open. Niall can hardly draw a breath, his stomach tight until Mr Higgins’ face breaks. And then he laughs, a hearty laugh that makes him look so much younger. 

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Mr Higgins says, his mouth forming a smile. He shakes his head, drags his eyes down Niall’s body again. “Earlier than with the veg and then we’ll get started.”

Niall’s shoulders drop, like he’s been held up with string this entire time and they’ve been cut. “Thank you, Mr Higgins.”

“Paul,” Mr Higgins tells him, fixing his cap on his head and heading back to his van. “Call me Paul.”

*

It’s a Monday -- they always come on a Monday Gemma tells him as they wait by the door. It’s a curious sort of fascination that makes Niall loiter with the rest of them. The bus trundles down the lane, hitting every pothole. Only now, Niall knows the bounce and the judder of a car over them, the way it jars your entire body for a moment, unsure how the vehicle will react. Niall would tighten his hands on the steering wheel, panic searing through him at how unfamiliar it is to him.

Paul says he’s improving and it takes all of Niall to believe him as they circle the yard and head up and down the lane day after day. 

There’s only six of them, wide eyed and young looking. They’re in a worse state than Niall had been when they arrived at Meadowside, the shirts thin on their backs and a measly bag of possessions under their arms. 

Gemma pounces on the girls, eager to impress them and Louis copies her, waving to one of the lads standing near the front. Harry follows him, all smiles and dimples and nervous hands ruffling through his hair. 

He doesn’t recognise anyone from Briar Hill and he’s sort of relieved, that tightness in his gut draining away as fast as it had twisted up. He won’t have to be nostalgic with someone new, he won’t have to run through memories of the gallery or of how the apple tart tasted the first day of autumn. He won’t have to remember Mr Simon or the faces of all those small children in the classes below him. Maybe they were all sent to Green Pastures. Maybe they all went to the fancier homes with the fancier bedrooms. 

Maybe they got away. 

As the others descend the steps into the yard to meet the young ones, Niall notices a lad standing near the back, hovering close to the bus. He looks nervous, his face pale and his hands gripped around his backpack. His eyes dart around the yard, takes in the squawk of the chickens they never eat and the gaggle of strangers who are now his new housemates. 

He looks young. Unprepared. He looks like he’s realising his time is running out. 

Niall knows exactly how he feels. 

*

Zayn, it turns out, doesn’t know many of the others either.

Niall settles him into the bedroom down the hall. Recently vacated but Niall omits that detail as he shows Zayn where the towels are kept and how to twist the knob in the shower so it gives you hot instead of an intermittent trickle of lukewarm water. He finds him a thick coat in the back room that only has one hole under the arm and gives him one of his own jumpers, a maroon one that Niall had taken to last winter because the sleeves came down over his hands. 

It’s nearly spring now but Zayn has thin shoulders and Niall thinks he’ll need the extra padding to withstand the chill that lingers in the old house. Niall’s bedroom is near the front of the house so it gets most of the wind and the chill. He’s taken to hoarding all the rugs in the house so the floorboards don’t feel that cold when he gets of bed. Harry’s already nicked one on him, he supposes he might have to donate one to Zayn as well. 

“It’s soft,” Zayn had said, so quiet. He had smiled then -- a proper smile -- and Niall had felt something stir deep down inside.

“No problem,” Niall shrugged, even though Zayn technically didn’t thank him. Zayn’d just smiled at him again, his hands scrunching the wool between them. 

It’s fun having new people in the house to break up the monotony of _waiting_. Niall can see how the others reacted when he first got here. They show them the television, all of them sitting down on the sofa and floor in front of it on Tuesday night to watch Holby City and some new comedy show with funny accents that Gemma tells him is American. Niall finds himself watching the lights reflect off of Zayn’s face, pinks and purples and blues. He doesn’t look as interested as the others, unimpressed and Niall can’t help the thrill at that. 

Instead, they find themselves leafing through magazines and books and chatting about music and how Zayn hasn’t seen this much green in real life before. 

“Didn’t you have grounds at your school?” Niall asks one day. They’ve pulled on wellies and went for a walk. Paul waves at him from the yard and Niall raises his hand back. 

He catches just the hint of distaste in Zayn’s expression. “School was --”

They tramp on up the muddy hill as Zayn thinks of a word. Niall curling his fingers in the threadbare material on the inside of his pockets. There’s a hole in the left one and he wriggles his pinkie into it, feels the constriction around his nail bed. Zayn had been at Cedarmount, a school that Niall hadn’t ever heard of. It sort of scares him to think that there are _more_ of them. There must have been over one thousand pupils at Briar Hill and more at the other schools that they were allowed to know about. Niall doesn’t want to guess how many of them there are really. How many in _total_. 

“Shit.” Zayn settles for and Niall doesn’t pry. Shit sounds shit. 

*

Zayn comes and finds him when Niall’s hands are cracked and sore and stinging. 

“You do this by yourself?” Zayn asks quietly. It’s dark outside and quiet. Niall stares into it, the block of orange light from the doorway behind him reflected in the blackness. 

“Yeah,” Niall answers. He glances at Zayn in the reflection and sees the slope of his nose, the depth of his frown. “Are you okay?”

Zayn nods, his movements jerky. He comes closer, until they’re nearly hip to hip. Niall can feel the coldness radiate off him. Like he just came in from outside. 

Niall passes him a pot dripping with suds. 

“Sometimes,” Zayn says, wiping the tea towel slowly over the bottom of the pan. “Sometimes they’d only call you by your number.” He affects his voice, sounding stern and cold. “Six-four-nine, stand up straight. A donor isn’t allowed to slump. Six-four-nine, no talking. Do you think the normal people want to hear your pathetic grovelling?”

Niall drops the scouring brush into the sink and turns to him. He’s not sure what to say. Briar Hill wasn’t like that at all. Niall’s always been Niall. Harry had always been Harry. 

“Zayn,” Niall whispers. The television programme must be over or on break. There’s noise rising from the living room and one of the lads from the other house comes through the kitchen to head to the toilet.

Zayn smiles at him, expression going a little wistfully. “You always say my name so nicely.”

Niall smiles at him, his pruned fingertips hovering over the popping suds in the sink. “Zayn,” he says again to make him laugh and he does, warm and broad. A laugh Niall could sink into. 

“Niall,” Zayn responds, knocking their hips together. Niall tips forward, his fingers sinking into the lukewarm dish water. He laughs, flicks some water at Zayn. Zayn snorts, trying to shift away but Niall plants his wet hand on his back, soaking through his thin shirt with a handful of bubbles. “Fuck, Niall it’s so wet,” Zayn yelps, bowing his spine forwards to get away from him.

Niall laughs. “That’s the point.”

Zayn twists, his hand swiping at what’s left in the sink. It tastes soapy when he lands his hand across Niall’s jaw. Niall laughs, coughing a bit when it nearly goes up his nose. For a moment all he sees is an oily rainbow of the light hitting the bubbles.

“Oh, shit,” Zayn’s saying, dabbing at his face with the dirty tea towel. It nearly smells as bad. 

“I’m fine,” Niall laughs, reaching up to grip at Zayn’s wrist where he’s got his hand pressed to Niall’s cheek. “Need a bath anyway.”

Zayn laughs, melting into him a little bit. His face is so close, his body close. Niall hasn’t had this before. Someone who touches him and lets him touch him back. Not like this. 

Zayn’s hand turns, his palm slipping out of Niall’s until they can catch fingers and intertwine them. 

“Niall,” Harry says suddenly from the doorway. Niall snaps his neck to him, feeling the burn in the tendon there. He’s staring at them, one hand on the doorknob. “I’m making tea. Do you want any.”

Niall swallows, feels Zayn take a step back. His hand feels cold. He glances up at Zayn but he’s already turning away. “Yes please,” Niall says, looking up at Harry. He’s watching Zayn, his face open and confused and frowning. Niall turns back to the sink.

He can’t look at either of them when neither of them will look at him back. 

*

“Lunch?” Harry asks, his socktoed feet appearing beside Niall on the step. Niall glances over, sees how he’s curling his big toe over the edge of the step. There’s a hole in his left foot, the edges of it splitting through where he’s already darned it. Niall wonders if he can fix it again or if it’s just too damaged to mend. 

“Thanks,” Niall says, reaching up to accept the bowl from him. It’s steaming and the warm ceramic of the bowl warms up Niall’s freezing palms. 

Harry settles on the step beside him, hands him a spoon from the two he’s keeping in his breast pocket. The handle of it is warm from being close to Harry’s body. “It’s potato and leek.”

“Thanks,” Niall repeats himself, spooning through the thick soup that Harry’s made. Paul’s got them clearing out one of the garages at the far side of the yard. It’s all useless junk -- broken boxes and old vegetable crates. He sniffs in, gets a waft of the salty savoury soup and his tummy rumbles. It smells good -- better than the damp cardboard and rotting grass he’s been smelling all morning. It’s a rubbish way to spend the day, but Niall wants the extra money. 

He’s saving for something. He’s just not sure what yet. He wants something special. 

Harry uses these days to practise cooking. Louis and Gemma still do breakfast and dinner but Harry’s been trying to fit in more healthy lunches instead of all the sandwiches they seem to eat. He’s started reading the column in the newspaper, hidden deep in the middle pages where no one looks and can’t be bothered about newspapers publishing weekly health tips for donors. 

Harry devours it every week, relaying to all of them the importance of drinking a glass of milk and keeping healthy greens in their diet. Louis fobs him off by pointing out all they eat are vegetables and the odd bit of meat here and there but Harry ignores him, rustling up soups and stews for those willing to taste. There’s a dearth of volunteers so it’s meant that Niall’s become Harry’s go-to-guinea pig. 

“It’s nice,” Niall tells him, eyes watering at how hot it is. Harry preens a little, spooning soup into his mouth with a small smile. Niall snorts to himself, leans into his arm a little bit. It’s cold out today -- it always is. At least the soup makes him warm. 

“Harry!” Louis shouts across the yard. It startles Niall, his shoulder jostling Harry’s. He had been content to sit with Harry in companionable silence, the radio in the kitchen too muffled to be heard out here. “Come help with this.”

He’s got something in his hands, the handle on the end of a large wooden box. It looks heavy, Louis dipped at the waist and both of his hands holding the edge of the trunk an inch or two off the ground. 

Harry takes a moment to get to his feet, half of his soup still in the bowl. “Be right back,” he says, his eyes bright and face pink. He looks happy. Niall smiles at him. 

Louis says something to him once he’s closer, his eyes flicking up to meet Niall’s even at all that distance. Niall doesn’t say anything, just finishes his soup. His side feels colder now but he focuses on the heat still in the bottom of the ceramic bowl. 

Harry’s laugh tinkles over to Niall, half echoed by the enclosed yard. He takes the other side of the trunk and together, they lug it out into the middle of the square to open and investigate. 

Niall feels another shadow loom over him and when he glances away from Louis and Harry tinkering with the lid of the box, he sees it’s Zayn. 

“You love him,” Zayn says to him but his gaze is directed out across the yard where Louis and Harry are struggling with the trunk. The lid clunks as it hits the concrete. 

Niall feels himself flush. Something uncomfortable settling in his stomach. They weren’t taught all that much about _love_. Harry starts to laugh as he sinks to his knees, his hands delving into the case. Niall can’t really see properly but he starts to pull out material and cloth. Clothes maybe. He says something to Louis, pulls him into a quick hug -- just a squeeze against his chest before he goes back into the trunk. Harry unfolds a shirt from the pile spilling out onto his knee and the flagstones, holds it up against his chest for Niall to see. His smile is blinding. 

“He’s my friend,” Niall says, looking away and picking at the rip in his jeans. He has to get Harry to patch them later. “We grew up together.”

Zayn hums, his hands deep inside his pockets. His features look so much sharper from this angle, Zayn’s body looming above Niall’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything else as he walks back into the house. 

*

It’s raining when Zayn appears at his door. It’s late too, Niall’s not sure what time exactly. He doesn’t sleep to the schedule Briar Hill forced them to here. Sometimes he gets up late and can’t sleep at night, listening to the quiet rustle of the house and to Harry and Louis next door. 

“Hi,” Niall says, cracking an eye open when his door edges open. Zayn’s got a candle, the flame flickering in the draught that comes through the single pane windows. His chin is illuminated like this and he looks ghoulish in the shadows. “Are you okay?”

Zayn doesn’t say anything, just edges into the room and closes the door behind him. Niall lifts the edge of his blanket in invitation. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Niall asks, his voice sluggish. 

Zayn settles beside him, his face pressed into the pillow for a moment. “It’s the rain.”

Niall hums. It’s sounds heavy outside, the yard soaked and flooding with puddles. He’ll need his boots to gather the eggs in the morning. 

“Back at --” Zayn starts. Niall’s on the edge of sleep but something in Zayn’s voice makes him come back from the brink. “At Cedarmount, the ceiling was slanted and made of tin. The rain used to batter down and we’d never get to sleep. It was so sharp. It masked the sound of the others, the older boys. The teachers when they --”

Zayn cuts off roughly. Niall can hear the distress in his voice, like when Harry sometimes has a nightmare and needs to be talked to and mollycoddled in the morning over sugary tea. The pain in a memory just as sharp as if it was truly happening.

Niall lifts his hand, pushes it out of the cocoon of warmth and searches for Zayn’s. The rest of the bed is cold still, Zayn curled an arms length away from him. Zayn’s wrist is bony when Niall squeezes around it and tugs him closer. 

“It’s only rain,” Niall murmurs. “You’ll get used to it.”

“It hits the window at the back of the house,” Zayn sniffs, wriggling towards him in the bed. “Sounds just like it.”

“You can stay in my bed on rainy nights,” Niall promises him. The rain is still obvious but it pours down the gutter and into the yard without rat-a-tat-ing off the rickety window pane. Zayn seems content with that plan and presses his nose into Niall’s neck. 

Niall feels selfish, tugging Zayn into a hug for just as much his pleasure as Zayn’s comfort. Sometimes, it feels like Niall would die without ever touching another person. In the afternoons, his back aches to be clutched, his muscles crying out for the pressure of a hug. He sees how Harry and Louis touch each other, the casual brush of a hand on a hip as they settle for dinner or breakfast, their arms around each other in front of the television.

Sometimes, Niall longs for that. 

Zayn snakes his arm around Niall’s waist, tugging him in close until they’re pressed chest to chest. Niall lets go of a breath, the hint of a quiet moan at the end of it. He feels Zayn shift, his movements methodical and calculated. The brush of his knee down Niall’s thigh, the pressure of it right there. 

“Niall,” Zayn murmurs, his voice ghosting over the sound of the rain. Niall hums again, blinking his eyes closed as Zayn presses his fingers to Niall’s back, warm even through his flannel pyjamas. He brushes his hand up, a dance of fingertips until they’re sinking into the scruff of hair at the back of Niall’s skull. 

Niall lets him pull him back and he blinks his eyes open to catch how Zayn is staring at him, his eyes bright in the dim. The candle flame flickers again behind his head and Zayn’s eyes are sunken in the shadows. 

“Zayn,” Niall finally replies in a whisper. “Please.”

He’s not sure what he’s begging for but with the first touch of Zayn’s mouth, he knows it’s just to be wanted. Zayn’s lips are soft but sure, like he’d done this before. Niall sighs into it, hesitant and cautious. Letting Zayn take the lead. 

Niall’s never done this before. Never even pretended with any of the girls back at Briar Hill like some of the boys did in their final year, the teachers turning a blind eye. Like Harry and Louis. Sometimes, he had thought that it wasn’t for him. That he wasn’t allowed to enjoy anything like that. He’d lie and listen to Harry and Louis through walls here at the cottage or across quiet dormitories back at school. It made him feel clammy and sweaty and panicky that he enjoyed it. In the morning, he still feels guilty when he sees Harry smile and knows why. 

This feels different. Strange, like his heart might beat up through his throat and into Zayn’s mouth it’s going that fast, that urgent pump of blood lighting his body up as it courses through his veins. He feels _alive_ like everything inside is rattling in its place. That everything that belongs to him is still there and accounted for and isn’t marked out for someone else. Waiting for its time. 

He opens his mouth, lets Zayn kiss him deeper. His hands are wound in the soft cotton of Zayn’s t-shirt and he doesn’t know what to do with them. He wants to touch but he doesn’t know where. 

Zayn rolls them onto Niall’s back, the thin blanket twisting around them. Niall feels overheated anyway, gasping for breath every time Zayn lets go of his mouth to kiss down his jaw and burrow into his neck. 

Niall splays his knees, lets Zayn press a leg between his. He feels brave when Zayn makes his way back to his mouth, kissing him wetly. He drops his right hand, finally feels where Zayn’s t-shirt has worked its way up his back. 

His skin is soft and hot and under his hand. He feels real. 

They’d been taught that they were fragile. That they were special. That one day they would be mined for the precious jewels that grew inside them. 

So, they should be careful with themselves. They should stay healthy and careful. They shouldn’t risk that future that’s already mapped out for someone else. It feels wrong to be handled like this, Zayn’s palms roaming down Niall’s chest, his mouth latched to his neck as he bites and grips and touches. 

Niall moans, rolls his hips up into Zayn’s stomach. It sends a shock down his spine so he does it again, grinding up against him. 

It feels so _good_. 

“Zayn,” Niall says again. A plea and a question all at once. 

“It’s okay,” Zayn murmurs, his lips brushing across the top of Niall’s mouth. Niall reaches for it, tips his chin to chase his mouth. Now that he’s tasted it, he never wants to stop. 

He understands now why Harry can disappear with Louis for hours at night. Why he can hear them through the thin walls at all hours of the day. Why they’re seemingly addicted to it. 

It was a taboo at school, boys disappearing into the shower stalls with guilty expressions and girls blushing whenever anyone came close. Niall used to be so confused by it, that urge to just fuck into his fist, chasing the release of it. It made him feel dirty and confused. It made him desperate. Like he’d just go out one day and do it with anyone. Keep chasing for that release. He’d stop for a while, sleep on his hand so he wouldn’t let it stray until it all got too much and he had touch himself again. Like he couldn’t help himself. 

Zayn’s hands roam over him, one pushing up his top to press at Niall’s nipples. The other curls in his waistband, dragging it down far enough until he can get at Niall’s dick. 

“Zayn,” Niall gasps, unsure when Zayn pulls away from his mouth to duck underneath the covers. There’s a waft of cool air as the blanket slips over his shoulders, Niall’s nipples puckering as Zayn presses his mouth, hot and open, to the middle of Niall’s stomach. 

Niall hasn’t a clue what to do, his hands hovering in the air either side of Zayn’s ears as he sucks and licks at Niall’s skin. This isn’t something he’s ever prepared for. This isn’t something he’d ever expected. They didn’t teach this at Briar Hill. This was never necessary. 

Zayn stays there, his mouth open at Niall’s stuttering hips. Niall gasps at the feel of his fingers, foreign and warm and welcoming all at the same time. They slip over the head of his dick, his thumb rubbing quickly like it’s a twitch Zayn can’t stop. “Oh,” Niall says, unable to form anything else coherent as he comes, his back arching so he presses his belly into Zayn’s mouth. 

Zayn stays there, Niall’s head fuzzy and full but he recognises his presence somewhere in the buzzing of his nerve endings. His hips jerk up again when Zayn presses his lips to one, his teeth scraping against the skinny jut of bone. 

He can feel the jerk of Zayn’s arm against his knee but Niall makes no move to help him. He isn’t sure if he could, his arms have turned to jelly and lie, useless, on the mattress either side of him. 

“Zayn,” Niall says, his voice nearly gone. Zayn chokes on a breath, his mouth close to Niall’s ear or it feels like it, just in the hush of the room. The only way Niall knows that Zayn’s followed is the stutter of his hand and then his weight, heavy and full across his chest as Zayn collapses into him. 

It’s wet and sticky between them, Niall’s flannel pyjamas sticking to his back as Zayn rolls off him. Niall scrabbles his hand after him, scared that he’s really leaving. He wants to be selfish again, have the press of another person against him now that he’s felt it for real. 

“Hush,” Zayn says on a whisper. His voice sounds rough and it sends a pleasant shiver across Niall, his skin pricking with goosebumps. “Just getting the candle.”

Niall watches him, through drooping eyelids as Zayn settles at the edge of the bed. His shoulders are still moving with the force of his breathing as he pulls his shirt over his head and loses his pants. Niall hasn’t really moved, his pyjamas in disarray -- the shirt pushed up over his belly and the waistband of the trousers cutting into the curve of his thigh. 

He feels too wrecked fix himself up. Still half in shock that he was able to do that with someone else. That he shared that with Zayn. 

Zayn blows out the candle unceremoniously and Niall has to rely on the shift of the mattress to know that he’s gotten back into bed. 

“I’ve never done that before,” Niall tells him in the darkness once Zayn has edged towards him again. His skin feels hot and vast now he’s completely naked. 

He can feel the way Zayn tenses, the set of his shoulders and the pause of his hands on Niall’s side before he relaxes. “It’s alright,” Zayn whispers to him, his lips catching near Niall’s ear. Niall rolls onto his side, his pyjamas twisting uncomfortably around him. “It’ll be okay.”

It makes him feel small -- the feel of Zayn’s hands on him in the dark. He feels everywhere and nowhere all at once. Zayn helps him out of the flannel shirt, the last few buttons slipping open under Zayn’s deft fingers. Niall kicks his trousers to the bottom of the bed, the cuffs of them catching around his heel as he stretches his legs out, pushes one hesitantly through Zayn’s knees. 

He can feel the rough brush of hair as they move against each other, Niall rolling onto his front so he’s lying against Zayn’s chest. He can feel the head of Zayn’s dick, still sticky, catching against the crease of his thigh. 

They don’t do anything, just match their breathing together. Niall feels like he wants to say something. The women on the television always say _I love you_ when this happens but all Niall can find to say is, “Zayn.”

“Niall,” Zayn says warmly, his palm settling low on his back. It feels more intimate than anything they’ve done tonight now that they’re finally snugged up with nothing between them. 

Niall revels in it and falls asleep. 

*

It’s easy to fall back into bed some days. The weather has turned dreary -- dark and damp in a way that Briar Hill never was. They’d come in from sports, spattered with mud and soaked to the skin but there would be a fire roaring somewhere. The showers would be lukewarm at least. 

At the time, Niall thought it was dreadful, his teeth chattering as he waited in the grotty bathrooms for his go in a stall. But here, in the dilapidated cottages at Meadowside, Niall’s never felt so cold. 

Niall rolls over, presses his face into the pillow that Zayn slept on last night. And the night before. And the one before that. It smells of him, of skin and of hair and of the earth. The material is cold against his face and Niall breathes into it, waiting for it to warm up. 

“Niall!” Harry’s squawking as he comes into the room, flapping. 

Niall jerks over onto his back, feeling like he’s been caught. 

He must look it too because Harry pauses, his gaze narrowing as he takes in Niall lying under the covers, body diagonal across the bed. “What’re you doing?” Harry asks but it’s not accusing, his tone curious. 

He’s wearing a thick coat, the hem of it hitting below his knee. Louis keeps telling him he looks like an undertaker and Harry had smiled wanly at him until Gemma pulled him aside and explained what an undertaker was. 

Dinner that evening was tense, Harry frowning into his stew as Louis looked on oblivious. 

But Niall had heard them make up later through the paper thin walls between their bedrooms. Loudly. 

“Nothing,” Niall says, his tone sharp. Harry stares at him for a few moments before he finally breaks, whatever he’s excited about too much to bottle up inside anymore. 

“Come on,” he says, his voice going quick and running into each other. He reaches forward and wrenches at Niall’s hand lying ontop of his covers. 

“Where are we going?” Niall asks. The air inside him bedroom is frigid compared to under the duvet. He pulls at Harry’s hand back, tempted to just drag him into the bed with him. 

Harry laughs, planting his free palm onto the mattress the other side of Niall’s hips. “No,” he says, blowing a bit of his fringe out of his face. He must’ve washed it because it looks fluffier than usual. “We have to get out of the house.”

Niall snorts, lets Harry drag him out of the warmth. He can only think of a lame _are you kidnapping me?_ quip, his mind going blank as he focuses on the feel of Harry’s hand. 

Harry’s laugh is worth it. 

Once Niall’s got his coat on him, Harry’s dragging him out of the room and down the hallway. Niall’s sock snags on a splinter in the floorboards but it doesn’t rip at his skin as they descend the stairs. He can hear the others in the kitchen, loud voices laughing, Louis’s louder than them all. 

Harry turns his head, presses his finger to his lips like the teachers in Briar Hill used to make them do. Niall finds himself smiling, squeezing Harry’s hand to show him he’s being quiet. 

They pause only long enough for Niall to pull on his wellies and then they’re out into the fresh, crisp air. 

“Where are we going?” Niall asks, once they’re far enough away from the kitchen window that he knows they’ll not be overheard. 

“It’s a secret,” Harry assures him. Niall laughs, feeling warm in the mystery. Harry’s still holding his hand, his skin warm against Niall’s so he doesn’t miss his gloves. 

They tramp across the field and head around the back of one of the out-buildings. It’s not one that they use like the barn or the old cavernous garage. Paul doesn’t keep anything but old machinery in it, the door half cracked open. There’s doors at the side, the slats sliced in half that Niall’s seen in spreads in _Town and Country_ , a tawny mane of a horse sticking out of the space to enjoy the sunshine. 

Niall would be surprised if their stables would even make it into the sunny pages of _Town and Country_ \-- there’s a distinct feeling of gloom no matter what the weather is like. 

“Harry,” Niall gasps as Harry pushes through the door, the wood swollen with damp so it sticks halfway across the threshold. Harry laughs, kicks at the door until they can shelter from the wind. “What are we doing?”

“Look what I got,” Harry says, his face lighting up even in the dim light. He lets go of Niall’s hand, reaches into the depths of his coat. 

The bottles clink together when he pulls them out, the sound echoing around the empty room. 

Niall stares at the unfamiliar packaging, the tall brown bottle, the label green and gold. It looks luxurious. Or at least, illicit. Niall racks his brains to figure out where on the television he’d have seen it before. “What?”

Harry looks at him gleefully. “It’s cider.”

“Harry,” Niall says sharply, feeling dread settle in his stomach as he works out what’s going on. “We can’t have that.”

Harry’s face falls slightly. But Niall knows they shouldn’t have it. They’re not supposed to drink alcohol. Or smoke cigarettes. Or do anything that could damage their bodies. 

It’s not fair on the Normals. 

“We won’t get caught,” Harry says, his shoulders sinking. “No one will know. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?” Niall asks, feeling like he’s sucking the fun bit by bit out of Harry’s face. The bottles clink together again as Harry holds them in one hand, the other coming up to push through his hair nervously. 

“I just wanted to try it.” Harry sounds deflated now. “I thought you’d want to, too.”

Niall sighs. He can already feel himself giving into Harry. He can hardly ever say no to Harry. “Where’d you get it?”

Harry gives him a small smile. “You aren’t the only one who has made friends with Paul.”

Niall bristles at that. Mr Higgins is a nice man, Niall doesn’t want him taken advantage of. 

“Ah, come on Niall,” Harry cajoles, reaching forward for his hand again. “We’ll be back in time for dinner and no one will find out. It’ll be fun.”

“How do you know?” Niall asks him, taking a step forward. 

Harry grins in triumph, like Niall’s already said yes. “They always have fun on the telly when they’re drinking.”

Niall rolls his eyes but Harry doesn’t stop grinning. Niall bites his tongue on asking why he isn’t doing this with Louis. It would’ve made more sense, the two of them sharing just another secret at the end of their already long list of secrets. 

There’s a tiny part -- actually, a not-so-tiny part -- that is ridiculously pleased that Harry came to him with this. It’s the main reason he says yes, reaching for one of the bottles. 

They’re warm to the touch, probably been hiding in Harry’s coat too long. It takes Harry a minute to work out how to get the lids off with a silver knife looking gadget in his hand. Niall watches on, mildly concerned until he hears a satisfying hiss and the lid pops off. 

Harry laughs in shock, lunging forward to get his mouth around the froth of the bottle. It comes second nature, how he reacts to the liquid bubbling up over the lip. 

“How does it taste?” Niall asks, his voice tight. He’s starting to let himself get excited, nervous anticipation bubbling in his stomach. He’ll get sick if he starts to drink it like this. He’s seen that too in the television -- how people suffer. 

Harry pulls a face. “I don’t know. Foamy.”

Niall laughs, reaches for the other bottle. Harry can work the bottle opener better the second time round and it pops off easily. There’s that hiss again but none of it bubbles up over the edge and Niall finds himself staring at it, scared to taste. 

The bottle is heavy -- about the same as a pint of milk -- but it’s shaped oddly, the neck of it long and thin before it widens out into a thicker cylinder. The label feels crinkled against his thumb and he worries the edge of it until it starts to peel away. It feels unfamiliar in Niall’s hand, like he doesn’t have enough strength to keep a hold of it. 

Harry gives him a reassuring smile. “Go on.”

It doesn’t taste how he expected it to. It’s not that bad, something fruity and apple-y underneath something wheaty. Sort of like Niall’s eating an apple that’s been buried like a potato. Niall smacks his lips together at the dry aftertaste.

“Well?” Harry asks, his face looking expectant. 

Niall shrugs and takes another slug. Harry laughs -- elated -- and follows suit. 

It hits him about halfway through the bottle. He feels like he’s fizzing from the inside out. His stomach is warm, the cool breeze sneaking through the slats of the door not making him shiver quite as much. 

Harry’s gone pink, his mouth wet and eyes bright. He keeps taking these great gulps, like he can’t drink it quick enough. Niall leans into him, just because he wants to and there’s nothing stopping him. There’s confidence building in his gut with every gulp and he laughs to match Harry’s giggles, both of them listing close to each other. 

“This was a good idea,” Niall says quietly. “It feels like we’re being sneaky.”

Harry grins at him, lifting an arm for him to wriggle under. He’s still wearing his coat and it’s warm underneath the flap of it where Niall half buries himself. He wants to burrow right down in. Stay close to Harry for ever. Button them up and not let anyone else in. 

“I’m glad you’ve found someone, Niall.” 

Harry’s voice is so quiet, Niall’s almost surprised with how fast his gut drops. That he even registered it properly. There’s something big building in his chest, making him feel tight. Those nerves curdling in every gap and space he has inside his body. 

It’s probably not healthy. For the future. When they’ll be carving each of his organs from his body. 

“What?”

Harry’s face clouds over, his mouth dropping open. It’s still as wet as before. “You and Zayn…”

“How’d you --” Niall’s voice sounds faint to his own ears. His hands start to shake and he has to lean against the cold stone wall to steady himself so he doesn’t drop the bottle. 

Harry glances away, the pink in his cheeks deepening. “I heard. Uh, I heard you and Zayn…”

He trails off but Niall’s too busy being mortified that Harry’s heard him and Zayn like Niall’s heard him and Louis. It feels sort of tainted now that he knows it wasn’t just the two of them sharing the moment -- that someone else was part of it too. That Harry was part of it too. 

Niall swallows. Just like how he’s been a part of Harry and Louis when he listens to them having sex. Niall glances away, suddenly feeling sick. He can’t look at Harry. He doesn’t want to see that guilt reflected in his bright open face. 

Harry clears his throat. “You like him. It’s good --” he says haltingly. “It’s good that you have someone to like you and you like back.”

Niall feels unsteady again. He didn’t think that Harry would notice. He didn’t think that Harry would _care_. “You have Louis,” Niall says slowly. It feels like his tongue is too big in his mouth. He takes a drink of the cider but it’s gone flat, sickly the way it gathers at the back of his palate. He sort of wants to gag but he drinks more of it to try and take away the taste. 

“And now you have Zayn,” Harry says, voice slow. 

Niall nods, setting his back to the wall and sliding down it. His coat rucks up his back and the concrete ground is cold on his arse. The bottle makes a hollow thunk when he sets it down. Harry sighs, coming to sit down beside him. He curls in a bit, his skin still impossibly warm for where they’ve been standing. Niall pats at his thigh, finds his wrist. 

It takes a moment but Harry curls his fingers into Niall’s, interlocking them in the crease between their thighs. 

“This tastes like shit,” Harry mumbles, lips slow against Niall’s shoulder. Niall snorts, a sudden roll of laughter escaping through his mouth. He can’t stop, Harry’s blunt statement the funniest thing he’s heard all day. It still feels too peculiar that they’re doing this. It’s making him feel giddy that they’re doing it _together._

Harry laughs along with him, his grin pressed up near Niall’s neck. “Normals are fucking weird.”

“Well,” Harry snorts, his fingers tightening. “We know that.”

They don’t sit for long, just until Niall’s arse has gone numb and he’s sure his nose is going to fall off with the cold. The rest of him still feels pleasantly warm -- even when he starts to hiccup and can’t seem to stop himself. 

They stow the empty bottles in a bramble bush near the stables. No one ever really ventures this far across the fields and Niall supposes they’ll be long gone by the time the bottles are discovered. It’s a sobering thought and he focuses on it, one hiccup at a time. 

There’s a little patch of snowdrops on the grassy slope, their heads bowed and bright even in the dim. “Here,” Harry says, stooping to pull onto out by the stalk. Niall tries to tell him to stop but he’s already got it clutched in his hand, his grin bright and loose. 

The petals are soft where they brush against Niall’s chin as Harry tucks it into the pocket of Niall’s coat. “There,” he says softly, dropping his hand to loop their arms together. Niall watches how he presses his lips together, the brush of his eyelashes against his cheek. He can smell the cider on Harry’s breath, warm and lush between them. 

“Come on,” Harry says softly, dragging himself away from Niall so they walk side by side, hands still interlocked the whole way home. 

Niall can see the warm glow of the windows of the house in the distance and Harry’s still laughing quietly at his hiccups when he feels a bright pain in his wrist. 

“Ah,” Harry yelps, wrenching his hand away and dragging it up to his mouth. He sets his lips to his wrist like it’ll do any help. 

Niall gasps, his arm jerking out straight. The pain spasms up his arm, muscles pulling taut. It’s hot, like something out of the fire is being pressed right to where his pulse pounds in his wrist. 

“Back,” is all Niall can manage, his voice choked as he scrabbles his hand down Harry’s front and coming up with a handful of coat. He pulls him forward, his eyes stinging and filling with tears. The windows look so far away now, the warm glow of them fading as he tries to gasp for air. 

Harry stumbles along after him, his hand coming up to grip at Niall’s other wrist. “Niall,” he cries hoarsely, his breathing hitching in pain. It sears through Niall -- the knowledge that Harry’s hurting too. 

They slam through the front door and Niall can distantly hear a loud wailing, synthetic and clinical sounding over the roar of his own pulse in his ears. He blinks frantically around at the rest of them hovering in the door to the kitchen, all of them wide eyed and panicked looking. Niall heaves a breath, reaching out to grab onto the banister. He slips a bit, a hanging coat making him unsteady. His wrist feels weak and throbbing but the sharp pain has dissipated as quick as it had came over him. 

If Harry wasn’t bent double beside him, Niall would’ve doubted it even happened at all. 

“Harry!” Louis harps from the front of the group, lunging forward to him. “What the fuck!”

Harry groans -- his hand still gripping onto Niall’s wrist -- and promptly vomits onto the stone flagged floor. Niall chokes, falling with him onto his knees. 

Hands reach for him, palms patting at him and someone is holding him up. Louis is nearly hysterical, dropping down to let Harry slump into him, their knees sliding in Harry’s vomit. Someone presses into his side and Niall closes his eyes, lets his weight sink into their arms gratefully. 

It smells acidic, sharp with the smell of bile and cider and Harry’s lunch, and then soft like skin and wool and soap. Niall inhales, feels like he’s floating away. Harry’s grip is still tight around his wrist but it’s Zayn who murmurs to him under his breath. “It’s alright, I’ve got you.”

*

Mr Higgins gives Niall a grave look the next day. Niall still feels horrible, the lingering throb in his arm a constant reminder of how he and Harry had been out after hours last night. 

Louis had fed them sugary tea -- much to his annoyance -- and they’d all huddled around together in the living room with the television on mute so it still sent purples and greens across the dim room as they shared stories.

No one else had ever had their chips react like that -- even back at school. 

“It means we can never stay out,” Louis had said, trepidation in his voice. He was curled around Harry like a limpet, his concern coming out strained and patronising when anyone else offered to comfort him. 

Niall sat opposite them, his tea cooling between his palms and an old tartan blanket wrapped around his shoulder even though he had been the opposite of cold -- felt like his blood was boiling him alive, the heat radiating from his wrist still. 

“Well,” Zayn had said very amicably from across the coffee table. He had kept shooting Niall looks, like he was curious what he was up to and that he was relieved he was okay but was very firmly giving him space if he needed. Niall had tried to smile at him appreciatively but he wasn’t sure if he could muster it -- his entire face felt like it was numb, all pins and needles like he’d been shocked and was still smarting. “We can just be thankful you were so close to the house.”

They had murmured in assent and Niall had nodded, his stare slipping back to where Harry was tucked in beside Louis. He stared back, his mouth parting slightly. 

Niall still feels a bit shaky the next morning, a faint throb behind his eyes. Mr Higgins doesn’t say anything, just passes him the crate of vegetables but Niall thinks he knows. 

Louis is standing on the step when he turns back to the kitchen. Niall raises an eyebrow. “Morning.”

“Morning, Nialler,” Louis chirps. He looks more relaxed than he had when Niall had parted to bed last night, his eyes still widely following Harry around like he was going to drop down dead. Niall supposes there’s still time for that yet. 

“What do you want?” Niall asks on a sigh and Louis cracks a smile, reaching down the step to help him with the groceries. 

“Thought we could go on a little trip,” Louis suggests. He presses a hand to the bottom of the crate but he doesn’t take any of the weight. His other hand reaches in and plucks an apple out of the box. 

Juice sprays as he bites into it. 

“What sort of trip?” Niall finds himself asking, pushing on up the steps and into the house. It’s gotten chilly again but Niall wonders if he’s just feeling it more in his bones today. 

“A fun trip,” Louis assures him. “I want to see the seaside.”

Niall snorts, drops the crate onto the bare wooden table in the kitchen. He sorts through the vegetables, pulling out the potatoes. 

“Why do you want me there?” Niall asks, suspicious of the way Louis’s smile is beginning to grow. 

Louis waits until Niall has dropped the potatoes into the basin and clapped some of the dirt off his palms before he speaks. “You can drive us, silly.”

Niall stares at him. “I can hardly drive,” Niall tells him. He has a feeling of apprehension in his gut and he stares back down into the murky water, drags his finger through it until he can find another potato to scrub. The clods of earth fall off it into the water. 

They’d went too far yesterday -- he and Harry had pushed to the limits of their living arrangements. Niall thinks of Paul’s stern look this morning. He doesn’t want to push it. It feels too risky. 

“I’ve seen you up and down that lane. You need practise on a proper road,” Louis tells him. “Get some proper experience. You won’t be caring for anyone just down the length of the lane.”

Niall feels an embarrassed flush seep into his cheeks and he curls his fingers, scrubs at the potato until it’s shiny and brown. “‘M not a carer.”

At least Louis doesn’t snort this time. 

“Come on,” he says surprisingly earnestly. “It’ll be fun. We deserve to explore a little bit. Have some fun after being cooped up here all winter long.”

Niall raises his eyebrows and grudgingly agrees that he has a point. 

“We’re not in school anymore. We should go and have some _fun_. I want to show Harry the sea.”

“You’ve been watching too much TV,” Niall tells him but Louis grins, realising that Niall’s already agreed. 

Paul lends them the van three days later on the condition that they’re back before dusk. Niall nods -- he doesn’t want to risk their beepers going off again. He can still feel the phantom pain ghost down his arm whenever he thinks of it days later. 

They shuffle into the van just after breakfast, Niall full of eggs that Louis had made on the stove, his grin turning a bit manic as the trip loomed closer. 

“Why are you so excited anyway?” Niall asks as he edges them off the farm property. He’s been onto the main roads before, unlike what Louis seems to think. Paul’d brought him down so he could try his hand at some roundabouts and he could see how junctions and traffic lights worked. Niall had felt a bit silly, braking too early and stalling at a zebra crossing. Paul made it look so easy sometimes. 

He had drove them into town, sat in the driver’s seat as Paul went into the Post Office and ordered more meat in the butchers. He had looked so jovial, laughing with the men in long red aprons the colour of the steaks that Niall has seen cut up into pieces to do them all for special occasions. Once, one of the butcher men had lingered by the doorway, his eyes boring into the window of the van. 

Niall couldn’t help but stare back, trying to place his face. The man had kind eyes. Familiar. 

When Paul had climbed into the passenger seat, he asked if he had seen a ghost. 

No matter how many trips into town with Paul to run errands, this still feels daunting. The tread of the car below them as he noses out into the traffic feels too powerful and too inconsequential at the same time. He could slip his foot and send them all careening to their deaths. 

“Because we’re off to find Harry’s Original.”

Niall nearly slams on the breaks. “ _What_?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Harry asks, his voice rising something from the back. He’s been quiet since their outing to the stables and Niall hasn’t wanted to push him. Harry slipping into the chair beside him at mealtimes and making him tea with nothing but a small smile. 

Louis snorts. “Of course I didn’t. I needed him to drive, didn’t I?”

Zayn’s staring out of the passenger window, his eyes wide as he drinks in his surroundings. Niall gets it, he had felt like that the first few times he had ventured into town. There’s so many _people_.

“I’m heading back,” Niall threatens. “I can still do that, y’know.”

“And ruin the entire day?” Louis scoffs. He doesn’t look worried at all. Niall hates how he’s right -- Niall won’t turn back now that they’ve set off. 

But Originals. Niall fights the urge to shudder -- he hates the entire myth behind them. Men and women that donors were modelled after, exact genetic counterparts so their genes and their blood would continue on. Their _desirable_ genetic markers that make them perfect for donors. That enable Niall and Louis and Harry and Zayn all to be expendable. Even Gemma if she ever gets her notice. 

Niall’s never met anyone who has actually met their original but the rumours of older pupils finding theirs filtered through the ranks of Briar Hill every year. Niall would always feel slightly sick when he heard them. He didn’t see the point -- they’d still be called up at some time or other. Niall thinks finding his Original would be a torturous glimpse into some parallel life -- the life that Niall _could’ve_ had if he had been born into the right family. Maybe he would be like the butcher in town, laughing along with the customers on the street with no weight of the future on his shoulders. 

The thought still plagues him though. The what-if. The _maybe_. There’s a reason he doesn’t offer to help Paul with his meat orders.

“Oh take the sour look off your face,” Louis chastises him, leaning back in the seat. Harry presses against his side, his long gangly legs all curled up because he’s somehow in the middle seat. He’s wearing his undertaker coat again but the sun cuts him across the cheek and he looks _bright_. “It’ll be worth it.”

It doesn’t take them too long to get to the seaside and Niall only stalls the car once. Louis doesn’t even say anything, his fingers tangled up with Harry’s on his knee as Niall shifts the car back into gear, teeth gritted. 

It smells _amazing_ , Niall decides as he finds a parking space and they all climb out onto the path. Salty and fresh and nothing like he’s ever smelt before. 

“Oh,” Harry breathes, coming up to stand beside him at the railing. “That’s the sea.”

Niall’s never seen the sea either, but there’s nothing quite the awe on Harry’s face. “Yeah,” Niall says faintly. “Let’s go down.”

Harry grins at him, taking off down the steps towards the beach. The stone steps are small for Niall’s feet, like they’ve worn away over time. It makes him feel unsteady and it’s no better when he gets to the bottom, the sand slipping like the whole world is wobbling under him. 

Niall swears, regaining his footing and making after Harry. He can hear the others follow him, the whoops and cheers of them. A few families look up at them, their windbreakers flapping in the breeze. 

Niall knows they must look insane. Four adults running wildly towards the water. Niall manages to take his shoes off before they get to the edge but Harry splashes on in without bothering to take his off. “Isn’t it amazing?” he calls, boots splashing in the shallow tide. The hem of his coat skims the frothing waves.

“Yes!” Niall calls back, water soaking into the cuffs of his jeans. He laughs -- giddy. Louis splashes in after Harry, his trousers soaking up to the knee. Niall watches as he reaches for Harry, both of them coming together in the water in a boisterous hug. 

There’s a gentle touch to his elbow and Niall turns his head, glances at Zayn over his shoulder.  
“Hi,” he says, feeling breathless. Zayn gives him a quiet smile. He’s standing as close to the beach as possible, only his toes dipping into the ocean. Niall goes to him, pressing his face into Zayn’s neck. 

He only wishes a little bit that it was someone else's. He puts the thought out of his mind, focusing instead on how Zayn brushes his hand gently down his side, rubs his lips against the spot on Niall’s jaw that is hardly even growing scruff. 

The water laps at their ankles and Niall finds Zayn’s wrist, feels it between his fingers as he tugs him further into the water. 

“Thanks for bringing me,” Zayn tells him quietly. He sounds a little bit awed, his face an easy smile when Niall glances at him. “It was nice to see this. Who knows if I’ll see it again.”

Niall ignores the way his stomach twists. “You’ll have plenty of time to see it.”

Zayn smiles wider, squeezes his hand. “Nice of you to bring Louis too. And Harry.”

They way he says it, so quiet but leading. Niall looks at him, feeling unsettled again. The water rolls steadily towards them, the lingering foaming ends of a wave as it peters out lapping around their ankles. 

“It’s okay to love him,” Zayn tells him.

Niall can see Harry and Louis laughing in the corner of his eye but he doesn’t look at them properly -- there isn’t enough space inside him today to see Harry that happy yet. He stares out where the grey sky meets the water, the line blurring the longer he stares at it. Phosphenes erupt in his vision, little balls of sparkling white that zip and zag across the sky the longer he stares at it. 

He wonders if Zayn missed out a _too_ at the end of his sentence. That it’s okay to love him _too_. 

Niall squeezes his wrist again. Just in case. 

“Niall!” comes a shout, jarring him enough that he blinks. “Come on! Hurry up!”

Louis and Harry are edging back towards the beach. They look soaked, water up to their knees as they trudge back up towards the road. 

Sand sticks to the soles of Niall’s feet as he and Zayn follow after them, quiet compared to their loud laughter. 

“He plays guitar up on the pier,” Louis says excitedly once Niall’s reached the path. It’s sandy from people traipsing over it to get to the shops and the ice cream parlours by the road. Niall struggles to fit his feet back into his socks, sand sticking to every surface possible. 

“How did you find him?” Niall asks once he’s wedged his boot back on. Louis ignores his question, hauling Harry up towards where the pier juts out into the ocean. 

They pass stalls full of trinkets and coconut shies with huge teddy bears and pink bunny rabbits hanging from the awnings. The pier looks a little battered by the weather, paint chipping from the wooden hutches selling bottles of juice and bars of multicoloured rock. Children sit on their father’s shoulders, their mouths sticky and glazed blue. Niall’s teeth hurt just from looking at them. 

“Woah,” Harry breathes, coming to a stop to stare up at the Ferris Wheel. It stretches high into the sky, the carriages rocking in the wind. It shines chrome and brand new white and bright red paint. “I bet you could see the whole world from up there.”

Louis laughs, his expression turning fond as he bundles him into his arms. “Stop getting distracted.”

Niall watches as Louis kisses the side of his head, Harry’s mouth turning up in a small smile. “Let’s go,” he agrees, the two of them turning to lead them down the pier. 

Most of the pier is deserted -- a few families strolling along and people settled on the wooden benches lining the length of the pier. It’s nowhere near the summer season and Niall’s still wrapping his head around how a Tuesday is supposed to be different to a Sunday. 

Ahead of them, Harry slides over to a large box type thing under a covered alcove. The side of it is plastered with grinning frozen pictures of all sorts of people -- young, old, men and women. They all have the same manic grin painted onto their face, some of them faded into black and white, their eyes sharp and staring. 

“What is it?” Niall asks warily as he catches up with them. 

Harry turns to him, his grin far more real than any on the box behind his head. “It takes your picture.”

Niall eyes him and Zayn’s already stepping forward, peering into the tight little room and the grotty, threadbare curtain. 

“Like in the magazines,” Harry jabbers on. “We can get a picture like in the magazine.”

Niall stares at it, marvelling how it works. Harry’s already bundling in after Zayn, tugging Louis in after him. “Come on,” he urges Niall when he hesitates by the door. It looks awfully cramped inside, the walls white and clinical and unfamiliar. 

Niall thinks he had been a thirteen before he had seen himself in a mirror -- not the wavering reflection in a puddle, marred by the oily residue that painted his face pink and blue and purple. He’d been shocked at the clarity of it, how pink his cheeks were and the peel of skin of his lips. His hair stuck in all directions, the length of it longer than he’d ever been allowed to grow it when he was in the younger classes. Mr Simon had separated all the boys after breakfast one morning and taught them all how to shave. Niall didn’t need to use that lesson for a long time but he had stared, something green tugging in his gut as he watched some of the other boys in his class start to grow shadows across their jaws and under their noses. 

Now, there’s a small mirror propped up above the sink in the bathroom at the house. It’s cracked slightly, the edge of it mottled and silver stained where the mirror has gone dull. It does the job. 

“Niall,” Harry says, nearly breathless with excitement. He scrambles out from under Louis, holds his hand for Niall to take. “Come on.”

Niall takes it, shoves himself into the frame. Harry’s already started to laugh and it’s infectious as the machine clanks and groans around him. Niall focuses on the heat of Harry’s body, Zayn’s soft smile and how Louis’s infectious laugh is starting to catch.

The snap of the shutter is loud -- exaggerated -- but it makes Harry laugh more, his head thrown back. Louis squawks, elbows digging into Niall’s side as they all squirm to reposition themselves. The machine starts to count down again. 

Niall feels fingers dig into arm, Harry’s touch turning gentler as he tries to tickle the soft skin under Niall’s bicep. Niall finally cracks, letting out a loud laugh as he tips into Harry’s shoulder. 

The machine cranks again, takes another picture. Niall laughs louder. 

*

They finally find him. 

It starts to drizzle, the clouds closing in but he’s still playing the guitar near the end of the pier. Niall can hear it before he sees him -- easier now that the pier has fully emptied out. The beach goers are scattering too -- bright blue and white striped windbreakers being tucked away back into cars. 

The busker busks on, his case open in front of him as he strums his guitar. Niall stares at him, his fingers moving deftly over the strings and he feels that tug. The same one he feels sometimes when he sits in the kitchen with Harry. That jealous _want_. That _need_. As if the music will fill some of those gaps that make his heart rattle around his too spacious chest. He wants to know how to do that. He wants to play too.

The rest of them are looking at something different, not transfixed by the guitar like Niall is.

“It’s not him,” Louis hisses. 

Niall snaps his eyes up, takes in how the man is staring back at them now, his face growing taut as he takes in four men staring at him in the rain. 

“What?” Niall asks, feeling one step behind everyone else. 

Harry looks shaken, his face dropping and growing pale. Beside him, Louis is working himself up into anger. 

“It’s not him,” Louis says again, his tone icy. The man with the guitar looks bewildered, his hands stopping on the guitar. It feels too quiet once he stops, just the caw of the seagulls swooping for the remnants of discarded chip packets. “Fuck.”

“Look,” the busker says diplomatically. Niall catches how he edges his open guitar case closer to the fence behind him, dragging it away from them. He stands protectively in front of it and Niall catches the gleam of a few shiny pound coins. “How about you just walk away now and I won’t have to phone the police.”

Louis balks. “Police? Aye, pull the other one.”

He sounds like someone off the telly, his voice like a character in whatever Gemma calls the Soaps. 

Harry’s already drawing away, his shoulders rounding in on himself. “Leave it, Louis. Come on.”

“Who told you it was him anyway?” Zayn asks, his face clouded in confusion. He keeps glancing between Louis and Harry but Niall can only really focus on Harry, how his face has gone carefully blank now. Like he’s not bothered. Or like he’s not even in there at all. 

“Fuck sake,” Louis shouts, his whole body snaps like an elastic band. His coat flaps as he throws up his hands, fingers going into his wild hair. He looks demented for a moment. “Fucking bullshit.”

It’s another line from the television. It doesn’t sound like it was formed by Louis’s mouth at all. 

“Leave it,” Harry says sharply, finally breaking his careful silence. He tugs on Louis’s arm, drags him away from where the busker is staring at them now. Niall gives him a cursory glance -- he doesn’t look anything like Harry. Niall’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

“Come on, let’s go,” Niall suggests. 

Louis is still raging, his face twisted into an angry scowl. Harry shuffles away from the edge of the pier, all of them distancing themselves from the Harry’s non-doppelganger. 

Zayn has a tense set to his shoulders as he leads them back to the beach. The shutters are falling on the stalls, all of them closing up for the day. It makes the place feel more deserted, like they shouldn’t be there at all. Niall watches as Zayn reaches carefully into his pocket and produces a packet of cigarettes.

“Where’d you get them?” Harry asks, going wide-eyed. “Did you get them here?”

Louis bares his teeth at him. “You’re not supposed to be doing that. You’ll make yourself sick.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Not gonna be here long enough to get sick.”

Louis opens his mouth to retort but he seems to angry to actually articulate one, his jaw working as he tries to figure out what to say. 

“What if they find out then?” Harry asks, his voice going thin and high. He looks a bit shocked, his eyes wide. The wind picks up his hair, makes it a mess of curls at the back of his head. 

“And how will they find out?” Zayn asks, pressing down on the lighter. The flame flickers in the wind before it blows out. Harry glances at Niall nervously, as if Niall can sort it out. No one will catch them out here -- no one knows they’re donors for a start. 

“I’ll tell them,” Louis says acidicly. Zayn presses his lighter again, calmly lights the cigarette in his mouth. “I’ve no problem telling them about you breaking the rules.”

Zayn raises his eyebrows, takes a drag. Niall’s never seen anyone smoke in real life, he’s sort of transfixed with how at ease Zayn looks. How well practised he is. “You tattle on everyone?”

Louis narrows his eyes at him. Niall can see him draw up his defenses. Niall knows Zayn’s poking at him to get a reaction. Louis falls for it, Niall knows he will. “If it’s serious,” he says, shoulders near his ears. “As serious as this.”

Zayn snorts, glances over at Harry pointedly. “Better ask your boyfriend then about all the rules he’s been breaking recently.”

“Harry?” Louis asks sharply and he finally looks around at him. 

Harry looks startled, like he’s been caught out. Niall knows his expression mirrors him but no one is looking at him except Harry. 

Niall’s chest feels tight. How did Zayn know? Harry shoots him an alarmed look but then has to look back at Louis who is looking a colourful mix of angry and disappointed and confused. Niall will be hearing them make up all night for the next week. The thought sours Niall’s stomach more. 

Zayn snorts softly, blowing a ring of smoke out of his mouth. “Didn’t think so. Only the real people who are going to get my organs matter then? Harry’s shouldn’t be warned in case it gets him into trouble? That’s a bit backwards, Louis.”

“Why do you keep calling them _real_?” Louis snaps, his head whipping around. 

Zayn shrugs a shoulder. “We certainly aren’t real.”

Louis fumes. His face grows pinker and his lips form a straight line. He steps up to Zayn, gets in close. “We’re not _normal_ but we are real.”

Zayn scoffs. “Like that’s any better.”

“Louis,” Niall warns. “Don’t.”

“Is this real enough?” Louis asks, lifting his hand. 

Harry jerks forward, grabbing his wrist. “Louis. Stop making a fool of yourself.”

Zayn steps back, away from where Louis is struggling with Harry a little. He sinks down onto his knees to stub the cigarette out in the sand. Niall goes over to him, sits down beside him. It feels like all of Niall’s energy is draining from him, that fizzing buzz of excitement and anticipation from earlier is long gone and everything inside him feels dulled by the arguing. Niall doesn’t like it when things get so tense. It makes his legs shake. Louis sags too, sinking into Harry’s chest looking deflated.

“Everyone just needs to calm down,” Niall says diplomatically, staring up at Louis with a silent plea to just agree. “Let’s just sit for a moment and then head home.”

Louis frowns, his face falling as Harry pushes him over to where Niall and Zayn have sat down. Harry pushes at his shoulder to follow suit and then he collapses into the space between Louis and Niall. 

Beside him, Zayn reaches for his lighter again but Niall stops him, laying a hand over his knuckles. Zayn and Louis are both too stubborn to let this fizzle out and Niall isn’t letting him make it worse. He has to get the pair of them home and in one piece before dusk. 

“I don’t think I want to be real or normal,” Harry says quietly a few moments later. 

Louis huffs out a breath. “We are real, Harry.”

Harry ignores him. “That’s not why we were made. Or brought up. We’re here for donation and completion and I think I want to be the best at that,” Harry says honestly. “May as well be good at it, you know? There’s no way out of it. So I’ll be the best donor they’ve ever seen.”

Louis doesn’t crack a smile, just stares balefully out across the ocean. 

Zayn offers Harry a lazy thumbs up. “That’s a good way to think of it, Haz.”

Niall reaches across, touches his pinkie finger to Harry’s in the sand. It takes a moment but Harry quietly folds his finger of Niall’s until they’re hooked together. 

Hook, line and sinker. 

*

It’s a lottery. 

You are on a list somewhere, waiting for when you’re needed. Waiting for when someone _normal_ gets a pain in their side or develops a cough. 

Your notice comes up. 

You fulfil your duty. 

What you’re made for. 

Everyone’s time is different. Everyone’s is counting down. 

Some just faster than others. 

*

Zayn gets his papers three weeks later. He’s the youngest person Niall’s seen leave Meadowside since he’s got there and he can tell the others feel the same. There’s a gleam in Gemma’s eye when Zayn tells them at breakfast time. She’s missed the draft again. Harry’s not smiling beside her, his face sombre for Zayn but he’s staring at Niall.

He wears the maroon jumper, the cuffs of it loose around his wrists as he lifts a hand to Niall’s cheek. They’re standing on the doorstep, Mr Higgins waiting patiently in the yard. The others are in the house, noses pressed to the windows in the kitchen. Watching. 

Niall can’t help how his throat tightens, that lump in it growing as Zayn gives him that soft smile, just like on that first Monday. 

“You’ll be fine,” Niall tells him, his voice wobbling. “You’re young. It’ll be a kidney or a bit of your liver for your first one. You’ll come through it.”

“I know,” Zayn says and Niall can see how he doesn’t look scared anymore. There’s that resolute hardness in his eyes now. He’s accepted it. 

Zayn’s lips taste salty when he kisses him, right there on the doorstep. Niall curls his fingers into the worn wool at Zayn’s ribs, licks across his lips in the way that he’s only just gotten used to doing. It’s when they pull away, Zayn’s mouth red and shiny, that he realises that it’s him who is crying. 

Zayn offers him that shy smile again, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “You’ll be a great carer.”

Paul coughs then. Zayn’ll be late. Niall has to let him go. 

“I’ve had the best time,” Niall tells him. He can’t think of anything meaningful enough to tell him. How can you reassure someone who has accepted their fate? 

“Best time ever,” Zayn promises him, stepping backwards off the step and into the yard. “Now it’s on to something new.”

Niall’s hand unclenches, lets him go. “Zayn,” he says, instead of goodbye.

The van bounces on the potholes and Niall stands, watching, until he can’t see it anymore. 

*  
*  
*

Liam’s in better spirits today, sitting up in bed when Niall gets there. 

“I hope you brought me peanut butter,” Liam says instead of saying hello. He never seems to have time for pleasantries these days. 

Niall supposes if he was looking down the barrel of his fourth donation, he wouldn’t be wasting the breath either. 

He’s wearing a red jumper and it’s so jarring to see him -- any of the donors really -- in anything so bright and _normal_. Niall bites his tongue on asking where he got it from -- Niall’s entire wardrobe is made up of navy, pale greens and greys now. 

“You know I haven’t,” Niall says with a laugh and sits down on the chair beside his bed. His bedside table is sparse -- a jug of water that has the telltale bubbles of sitting too long. The charity library must have been around the wards recently, Niall surmises because there’s a dog-eared paperback Niall knows Liam hasn’t even touched underneath a tub of Sudocream that Niall has had to help apply to places on Liam’s body that Niall hardly ever touches on himself, never mind a relative stranger. 

He’s only a few days older than Niall, if they can even narrow their creation date to a particular day. Sometimes it’s jarring to see how far apart they are on the donation scale. Liam’s a rare case -- lasting so long through his rounds of donations that his previous carer had ran out of time whilst caring for him.

“Sophia was lovely,” Liam would say, his big eyes glancing away from Niall whenever he brought her up. Which was sadly often. “Real sweet. Made for the caring business, y’know?”

Niall had nodded and listened. Listening is half the job most of the time, Niall’s learnt that over the years. 

“I’m feeling loads better,” Liam assures him, pouting to make Niall feel guilty. 

Niall laughs brightly. “You shouldn’t be eating peanut butter.”

“But apples are so boring without it,” Liam huffs, picking at a thread in his blanket. 

Niall snorts, leaning over the edge of the mattress to reach Liam’s file where it’s hanging on the bottom of the bed. “And are you supposed to be eating them either?”

Liam pulls a face, slouching down in the bed again. He’s got long legs and he kicks one of them out to distract Niall from reading his chart. Niall laughs again, fighting to keep quiet -- not everyone on the ward is feeling as chipper as Liam today. 

“I’ll go find out if they’ve moved your surgery,” Niall promises him, standing back up from the chair. “Can’t have you starving, can we?”

Liam gives him a triumphant grin as he settles back along the bed. “See you later.”

He hasn’t worked at this donation centre before. It’s basic, laid out like the hospitals he sees on the television sometimes. The wards are long and sterile, the floors squeaky and the walls painted a drab grey. There’s a central station of nurses and ward staff at the end of the ward and as Niall approaches it, he can see how another ward stretches out the opposite side like a mirror image. 

It’s quiet at this time of the night -- the only sporadic visitors, the other carers. Niall knows that he visits more than he’s required and he knows that he’s been visiting Liam especially more often but he doesn’t think anyone has noticed yet. He’s always back before his curfew, his bracelet beeper silent ever since the first and last time he had heard the squall of the alarm all those years ago.

He snorts at the memory -- it feels like so long ago. He rolls his wrist, feels the bones in it crack and the pressure ease. Sometimes, he can still feel it faintly burning. 

He’s still half down memory lane when he glances up and catches the eye of the person in the end bed. That’s why he has to do a double take, his mind bringing up Louis and Harry and Zayn’s faces. _That’s_ the reason why he thinks he sees Louis slumped in the bed, the scratchy blanket pulled up around his waist as he stares vacantly out into the corridor. 

He blinks, his heart thundering in his chest but the face doesn’t change, the slope of his nose or the fluffiness of his hair. He looks paler, his cheeks more gaunt but it’s definitely him. 

“Louis,” Niall says, taking a halting step forward. 

Louis looks over at him and Niall sees the flicker of recognition, how his face twists into a frown before it smoothes out perfectly blank. “Niall.”

“Hi,” Niall says in a rush, stepping forward until he’s right up against the bed. It looks identical to Liam’s -- the untouched jug of water and a tattered Mills and Boon propped against the lamp. But lined up along the edge of the table are familiar little nik nacks -- a shiny football card that’s bent at the corners and slightly faded like it’s been left out in the sun, a spinner top that Niall knows blurs into purple when it dances across the table and the little one eyed stuffed dog -- no bigger than your palm -- that looks like it’s seen better days. 

It twists at Niall’s gut, seeing the little things that Louis has carried all the way from Briar Hill. These are the things that Louis felt were most important. He can’t stop looking at them, his gaze lingering on where the stuffing of the dog is poking out slightly from the seam of the hind leg. 

“Louis,” Niall says, his voice quiet and awed as he reaches for something familiar that’s slotted underneath the football card. 

It’s the photostrip from the day on the pier, the focus sharp but the paper slightly faded. It’s been torn hastily in two, the jagged edge coming across the top of Zayn’s face so Niall can only see half of it -- his chin and the bottom of his grin. Niall’s tucked in close to him, Zayn’s chest to his side. Harry’s frozen in mid laugh, his face round and happy in the middle and Louis is at the other side, book ending them in with a soft smile on his face as he stares at Harry. 

It makes Niall choke, his chest going tight. He hasn’t seen Harry in such a long time and this is _just_ as he remembers him, his face lit up in laughter. 

“Oh, Louis,” Niall murmurs, his thumb rubbing over the bottom photo. It’s still perfectly attached so Niall can see all of them together, their faces different expressions but their bodies angled only slightly differently in the few moments between snapshots. Louis’s laughing now, his eyes closed and Harry has turned, staring up at Niall. Niall doesn’t think he had even noticed at the time how they were taking up the centre of the picture, his mouth open as if he had said something. Harry’s face looks open, his mouth turning into a smile as he looks Niall. Niall’s hand is resting on his shoulder, his entire body angled towards him. Behind him, Zayn’s curled against back, his chin resting against Niall’s shoulder so Niall can only see the sharp profile of his face. 

He stares at it, willing for him to turn around. Just so Niall can see his face properly. But he can’t. It’s only a picture. 

Niall collapses into the chair, his legs feeling shaky. Louis is still curled under the duvet, his face wary. Niall can’t think of what to say. 

Louis reaches forward, his fingers closing around the corner of the photos and tugging them away. Niall opens his mouth to say something -- he can’t, they’re Louis’s photos after all -- but Louis leaves the photos near his hip and grabs onto his hand instead. 

Niall glances up and Louis offers him a quiet smile. 

*

“I know I look,” Louis takes a laboured breath. “ _broken_ since the last time you’ve seen me.”

“You’re not broken,” Niall tells him cheerfully. That’s his usual offensive when his donors get a bit blue. Cheer tactics. Liam loves it. “You’re _recovering_.”

They’re walking outside today, Louis gripping onto Niall’s arm for dear life as they edge along the little gravel path towards the lone bench in the middle of the overgrown patches of weeds that are classed as gardens at the centre. It’s still chilly -- Louis bundled up in his coat and Niall’s scarf -- but the sun is out and Niall had decided that it was the perfect way to raise Louis’s spirits. 

“Cut the bullshit,” Louis snipes, his teeth chattering slightly. He collapses onto the bench, wincing when he comes down too heavy on the slats. Niall takes the seat beside him, doesn’t mention it when Louis presses into him. It’s for the warmth, probably. 

Niall’s taken to unofficially caring for Louis, slipping down the ward when Liam is preoccupied with reading over his own chart or snoozing after his dinner. Louis’s carer doesn’t seem to mind either and has taken to filing her nails by the television for an hour every day before she waves at them and heads home. 

In return, Louis has taken to his old ways. It’s nearly refreshing, Louis being cheeky and sarcastic and funny the way Niall always remembered him. 

Except, now it all comes with the sound of laboured breathing or the crippling crush of his fingers when he gets a pain in his side. 

“I certainly _feel_ broken,” Louis tells him. “Let me say that if I want. I’m the donor here.”

“Okay,” Niall says, letting him win more than his fair share of their disagreements. It’s half out of pity and the only reason he knows that Louis must be miserable is because he’s not putting up a bigger fight.

They’ve fallen back into friendship easily once Niall had scanned over Louis’s chart and realised that he was this ill after only one donation. Louis had shrugged as if to say _what can you do_ and then snarked at Niall when he had suggested he helped him in the bathroom.

It’s quiet outside, barely any of the patients are well enough to walk let alone move outside. Niall’s determined to get Louis well again -- if Liam can go four rounds then what’s stopping Louis? 

They sit for a while in the fresh air, Louis picking at Niall’s sleeve with bony fingers as Niall watches the rustle of a squirrel in the far trees. 

“Do you ever see Harry?” Louis finally asks quietly. 

Niall feels his muscles tense on their own accord. He spends most of his time trying _not_ to think of Harry. “No.” Niall clears his throat when Louis doesn’t say anything. “Haven’t seen any of you since I left Meadowside.”

Louis hums, his fingers plucking at Niall’s sleeve again. Niall can feel every time his hand brushes the delicate skin on the inside of his wrist. “Me neither. We --” Louis says, breaking off quietly. “We didn’t stay there very long afterwards. Thought it might be better to go out and see the world.” Louis snorts, self deprecatingly. “What a world, eh?”

Niall agrees with him quietly. He had thought that his life of caring would be more fulfilling but so far, it’s just been lonely. Getting up in the bleak pre-dawn hours and driving to the donation centres, holding hands and signing papers, washing hair and swabbing swollen bedsores, watching the next one complete before heading back in the dark to a cold house and colder bed.

He’s taught himself to distance himself from his patients -- he learnt that the hard way after Bressie. He hadn’t been his first but it had been back in the early days when Niall still thought he was making a difference and Bressie was all gentle laughter and big hulking pats on the shoulder. 

Niall had cared for him for a few months over a rainy summer and they spent their days in the corner of the ward, Bressie teaching him how to grip his hands around the fret of his guitar. Niall had never asked where he had got it from but it was shiny, wood smooth and warm under his palms when Bressie thrust it into his lap. Niall played hungrily, soaking every tip Bressie could give him. 

When he completed, Niall didn’t think anyone would notice if he took it. It sits in the hallway of his flat, so Niall can see it every time he comes in from a long day in a hospital. The guilt sits heavy in his stomach but every time he gives into the twitch in his fingers to play, he thinks of Bressie and his encouraging smile. And it feels like losing him all over again. 

“I’ve kept tabs, you know?” Louis says and Niall shakes himself out of his memory. He’s gone back to that quiet voice that Niall recognises as him opening up, sharing a secret. “On both of you.” 

When Niall glances down he sees how blue his eyes are. Niall wonders who will get them, later. 

“Oh yeah?” Niall asks. 

Louis nods, looking vaguely embarrassed for a moment. “Just making sure you were both still here. Or there, I suppose. I really hadn’t expected you to walk up to me though. Must be letting myself slip.”

Niall laughs. “Just until you’re back on your feet again. Then you can get back to your stalking.”

“I’m not stalking,” Louis says and Niall suspects it’s meant to be in mock outrage but it comes out surprisingly earnestly. 

“I know,” Niall assures him. “Just keeping tabs.”

Louis glances at him, something wary and secretive in his eye that makes Niall suck in a breath, his body going tense in apprehension. Louis brushes his fingertips over Niall’s wrist, deliberate this time. 

“He’s not far from here,” Louis whispers. “I’d like to go and see him.”

Niall blinks. “You want to see him.”

“He’s in a donation centre near the sea,” Louis says, forehead dipping into a frown. “I have the address written down somewhere. He’s doing really well.”

“Near the sea,” Niall repeats. He isn’t really taking it in. Harry’s close by. He’s _well_.

Louis nods and Niall realises how pale he’s gone. He’s shaking a bit, his teeth still chattering. Niall wonders what he’s thinking, taking his charge out in the frigid wind. Niall curses to himself, gathers Louis up close. 

“Let’s get you inside before you catch your death.” Niall tells him. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”

Louis snorts roughly, ends it in a sniff. “Might be sweeter.”

Niall gives him another squeeze as they start to shuffle back towards the care centre. If he gets ill again, they won’t let him leave. They’ll just notch him up the list and take all the organs that aren’t riddled with the pneumonia in one fell swoop.

Niall isn’t really sure if he wants to see Harry -- it’s been so long. He had resigned himself to the fact that he’d never see them again. Resigned himself to going through the motions alone until it was over. 

He gives Louis a squeeze as they take the steps up to the entrance slowly, Louis leaning heavily on Niall’s arm. 

“Let’s go to the seaside.”

*

Harry’s standing on the steps, the rain pouring down on the awning above him. He looks good, his hair shaggy around his ears. Niall’s shocked that he’s still got it, no one lasts this long with a full head of hair. Even Niall’s has been cropped close to his scalp. It seems like a defining marker for their type. 

Niall’s out of the car before he really registers it, the rain landing wetly on his face as Louis makes half-protests behind from the passenger seat behind him. 

Harry’s already stepping out into the rain, his hands coming up to reach for him. He has the same look of shock on his face that Niall feels. It’s been so _long_.

Niall walks into his chest. He feels the urge to keep walking, walk until he’s right inside Harry. Sharing the same breath and sharing the same blood. The same fate. 

Harry clutches at Niall, his broad hands on Niall’s bony shoulders. Keeping him just as close. Niall drags his hands up, feels the heat through the layers of clothing of Harry’s sides. He curls his fingers into the scratchy fabric. Pull him closer. 

“Niall,” Harry breathes and it’s like a trigger, the cord inside him snaps and he slumps forward, putting all his weight on him. 

He hasn’t touched anyone like this in so long. He’s held a few his donors hands, he’s stroked a forehead or two as they writhed in pain but he hasn’t hugged. He hasn’t been hugged. Even the arms around the shoulders from Liam or Louis leaning all his weight on him don’t count compared to this.

“Louis,” Niall says, his voice cracking. He clears it roughly. “Louis is in the car.”

Harry’s tearing away from him, his face that bright picture Niall always associates with HarryandLouis and heads towards the passenger side. “Louis! How are you?”

Louis’s smiling, really smiling and they fumble a bit when Harry goes in for a hug, looking awkward. Harry looks so _well_ , his thin shirt flapping around his ribs as he stoops inside the car. It’s hard to believe that he’s had one more donation than Louis when looking at them like this. 

Niall climbs back into the car, Harry clambering in the back. He’s like an excitable puppy, his face wide and open. He keeps shaking his hair out like a dog and pushing it behind his ears, his eyes bright. 

“Let’s go on a trip!” Harry says excitedly. “You know, this is just like the last time we went on a trip.”

Louis laughs breathlessly but Niall wonders how much it is from excitement and how much is physical breathlessness. “We can get ice cream again.”

“Fish and chips,” Harry disagrees. “Jeff says I shouldn’t eat them if I want to stay fit. But I want the biggest bag of chips they’ve got and all the salt and vinegar I can fit on them.”

Niall finds himself laughing, pulling out of the carpark. Neither of them ask who Jeff is but Niall still pauses at the thought -- that Harry has a carer, that Harry _needs_ a carer. 

“Salt is bad for you,” Louis chastises, his voice rough. He sounds congested again and Niall knows he shouldn’t be taking him all the way out towards the coast. He’ll get sick again. 

Harry leans forward, Niall can see him grin in the rear view mirror. “I missed you,” he says quietly, his hands coming around to hook at Louis’s breastbone. 

Louis laughs but it sounds like a gasp. 

*

The sun disappears behind a cloud as soon as they park up. The beach is busy, people gathered around windbreakers and the open boots of cars. There’s a big wheel on the pier and Niall catches Harry staring at it, the lights glittering in his eye even though it’s not properly lit up yet. 

“I wish we could go on it,” Harry says, turning to look at Niall. “When it’s dark and all lit up. You could see the entire world from up there.”

Niall doesn’t know what to say, his mouth opening but nothing coming out. He just smiles at him, Harry grinning back. 

They get chips from a shop right on the seafront, the line reaching out the door because it’s just after lunchtime and the sea air is making everyone hungry. Louis leans into Niall’s arm as they join the end of the queue, the smells making Niall’s stomach twist and turn. He catches a few of the people walking past them on the street staring and Niall knows it must be because of how pale Louis is, how frail he is bundled up in a coat and a scarf. He wishes they were already inside and sheltered from the wind at least. The people in front of him are kids, all smiles and shouts. They keep glancing at their phones and laughing boisterously. Niall wonders if they’d let them bunk in front. It’s futile -- Niall knows that no one will take pity on them, not when Louis looks so obviously like a donor. Niall hugs him closer, lets him share his warmth. 

Louis smiles quietly when Harry hands him over a package of chips all wrapped up in paper, his carefully put together face only cracking a little. 

The wall is slightly cool but they sit on it, legs hanging over onto the drop down onto the beach. The water is rough today, picking up with the wind. Niall watches it for a long moment, watches the people out in it without a care in the world. 

The wind whips around them too, smelling crisp and salty. Niall pulls his coat tighter around him, chastises himself for letting Louis sit on the cold wall with how ill he is. Harry keeps shaking his head to get rid of the hair that’s blowing into his face as he eats. 

“Your hair has gotten so long,” Louis says, chips sitting open in his lap and going cold. He hasn’t really touched them, one sitting between two of his fingers. A bit of potato is bulging from the end where he’s squeezed it too much. There’s an unasked question in his statement and Niall glances over at them just in time to see Harry’s smile falter and then grow across his face again. 

“You need nine inches to donate,” Harry says, ruffling at his hair and then touching the ends of it carefully. He looks sort of bashful about it but Niall can sense how proud he is. No one ever donates their _hair_. “I told you I’d be the best donor.”

Niall smiles, smiles through the sharp pain in his chest. Harry’s _already_ a donor. His clock has ticked down. He’s already on that journey. 

And Louis’s nearly at the end of it. 

Niall looks away from Louis but that means looking in the direction of Harry. He’s hunched in on himself, all curled over as he pushes more chips into his mouth with his fingers. His hair picks up in the wind again, scraggly but there. Between them, Louis picks at his food. 

Niall licks the vinegar off his thumb, salt soft and half dissolved against the warmth of his skin. It tastes sharp across his tongue. Savoury. 

“You know I’m sorry,” Louis says suddenly, his voice rising above the sound of the wind. 

Harry’s looking at him, his face blank. Niall had forgotten how much he had hated when he did that. When he couldn’t read him properly.

Louis takes a shaky breath, his hands clutching around the paper of the chip bag. He throws a furtive glance at Niall but looks back at Harry. “I shouldn’t have kept you for so long. I shouldn’t have kept you apart.”

Harry shakes his head. “You loved me.”

Louis gasps, shakes his head sadly. “I told myself I loved you. Everyone coupled up. Girls and boys and I thought because it was us then we had to be _special_. We had to be the _real_ thing. That we could get a deferral --”

Harry’s face hardens and Niall can’t look at him anymore. He glances out to the sea. It’s starting to empty out now as it gets choppier, the wind picking up. 

“Deferrals were just schoolboy rumours, Louis,” Harry says. “Like Originals and the monsters over the fence.” His voice has an edge to it, like he’s telling himself that too. Niall can remember the last time they were at the beach. How Harry’s hand had curled around his when they thought they’d found his Original. How he’d thought they were real too.

Louis shrugs sadly. “I believed them. I believed them all. I lived in hope that we could prove our love to someone. To _anyone_. And they’d say yes. They’d say well done and congratulations and here you go, have a few more years to live your life. To _enjoy_ your life.”

Harry matches Louis’s laugh hollowly. “A perfect life. I’m happy you thought about that with me.”

Louis leans into Harry, lets him bundle him into a hug. 

“It should’ve been you and Niall.” 

Niall feels his face warm up, his fingers slipping over the crunchy bits of chips that are all he has left at the bottom of his bag. He wipes the grease from his hands on his jeans as Louis reaches for it to tug him into them. Niall’s coat gets caught on the rough of the stone wall, drags at his shoulders a bit. He curves himself into Louis, meeting Harry’s eyes over his head by accident. 

He doesn’t see confusion reflected in Harry’s eyes. He doesn’t see Harry’s denial. 

“You _were_ in love.” Louis’s voice sounds thick. Niall can smell the clinical chemical shampoo they use at Louis’s Donation Centre and greasy chips. He feels shaky, now that it’s all out in the open. 

Niall used to think that it was his biggest secret. That no one would ever know. But Harry’s looking at him like he agrees. Like he’s known all along too. 

Harry’s hand snakes around Louis’s front. It feels familiar and warm and Niall never wants to let it go. 

“Are,” Harry says quietly, his correction getting lost in the wind as it picks up around Niall’s ears. Niall feels that buzz again. Something he hasn’t felt for years. That clenching of his stomach and the stutter in his breath, that catch. 

“Are,” Louis agrees, squeezing them together the best he can in his weak grip. 

*

Louis doesn’t want to go up. He shakes his head and leans against the chain fence that denotes the space to queue for the ride. 

The Ferris Wheel isn’t running and Niall feels like it’s just something people talk about. There’s sort of a strange disappointment in that. Disappointment that it’s twice now he’s been denied the chance and twice it’s because they have to go home before it starts up. That they can’t have a go because of who they are. He decides that next time they’ll have to come in July or August, with the sun beating down and enough people moseying down the pier that the Wheel will be running. Niall tries not to acknowledge the disappointment inherent in how they’ll probably not be back. 

They decide to go on the swing chairs -- Harry’s face lighting up when he realises it’s open. Louis looks sick at the sight of it and decides to let them go up without him. 

“Are you sure?” Harry’s asking, his shoulders shaking with excitement. Niall can’t look at them standing beside each other for too long -- the differences in them striking the longer he compares them. 

Louis gives him a bright smile and ushers them off into the line. Harry pays for them, grinning at Niall as he hands over a few coins and then they walk over the elevated floorboards, the ground bouncing slightly under their weight and grab two swings. There’s two children behind them, their feet dangling they’re that high off the floor. 

The seats are cool when Niall sits down, the metal chilling through the denim of his jeans. There’s a chain that slides across his lap, tight enough to stop him from falling through but it doesn’t settle him. He grips the chains, feels the coldness seep into his palm. They feel metallic and harsh, like he’ll have chainlinks imprinted into his palms when he takes them away. 

Niall’s heart is in his throat as he hooks it in, Harry doing the same beside him. He’s not quite sure if he wants to do this at all. There had been a swing at Briar Hill, a wooden plank that some of the older boys had rigged together with a bit of old rope. It hung from an old tree right on the edge of the playing field and the girls used to sit and chatter while Niall slogged it out playing rugby. 

He had sat on it once, his shorts thin and threadbare and gotten a splinter on the soft skin where his thigh had met his arse. The branch had creaked when he tried to kick himself higher and it had made him startle, the worn rope under his hands loosening and the entire swing falling to the ground under his weight. The pain of the splinter had been sharp, his entire backside too sore from the fall to pinpoint where it went in. Louis had laughed for hours when he had limped back inside and lay across his bed, asking someone -- anyone -- to pull it out. 

This one isn’t anything like the rope swing at school -- this one is painted bright red, the ceiling ornately decorated with pictures of lions and elephants and bright green dragons. The chains fall from metal forks, all of them spaced evenly around the carousel. They hardly look strong enough to hold all their weight. Niall tries not to look up after that.

“Hey,” Harry says, his voice high and bright. He looks so excited. His cheeks pink with health and happiness. It eases the tension in Niall’s gut, makes his chest feel less tight. “This will be fun.”

“Okay,” Niall says, laughing slightly because it’s the only reaction he feels he can give. Harry laughs back, his head thrown back. The sun is peeking out from behind one of the clouds and it shines sharply across Harry’s face, turning him golden and warm. Niall blinks, wishes for sunglasses against the glare so he could keep looking at him with squinting. 

The man who took the money from Harry closes the gate and something deep down inside the carousel cranks. Niall swallows against the sick feel building in his gut. Harry’s laughing again.

Something cranks again and the floor starts to descend, the floorboards sinking away. Niall tries to keep his tiptoes on it but it doesn’t take long until it’s sinking right down to the ground. 

On the ground, feeling very far away is Louis, bundled in two coats with his face open and wide eyed as he takes them in. Niall can make out his faint smile. Harry had draped his coat over his shoulders, offering him extra heat because Harry hadn’t needed it. Niall has to remind himself that Harry has donated more than Louis. 

The great machine starts to move, the chains going taut and jingling as they start to jostle. Behind them, the two children yell out happily. 

“Oh my,” Niall starts, breath catching as they start to move. Harry laughs back, his face ecstatic as he grips onto the chains. 

It starts off slow. Like they’re moving in slow motion as they start to move. The momentum sends his chair outwards, Harry going with him but still an arm’s length away. Niall doesn’t know how it works, how it’s safe. It feels like he could just fly off the chain, the swing moving through the air like it’ll never stop. 

They gain speed, wind whipping past his ears. Niall can’t breathe for a moment, like he’s pushed his head into the wind as it flies through the window in the car when he’s going fast down the motorway. It feels a blur, the tinkling sound of the carousel music fading away into nothing as the wind roars over it. 

Harry laughs brightly and Niall forces his eyes open. They’re out above the ocean, the pier fading away below them as they ascend higher. Niall opens his mouth, a cry of delight leaving him. They feel so _high_ , like nothing can bring them down. The sea stretches on as far as he can see and it feels like Niall can see all the way to forever, that from this height he can see everything. 

The sun shines down, the sea glittering and foaming with waves. The beach runs like a beautiful border, sandy and brown and smooth against the rough blue shine of the sea. Niall’s sure it would be pretty in the dark, the carousel all lit up and pretty but this is _breathtaking_.

“Niall,” Harry calls from his right and Niall fights to turn his head, the wind resistance buffeting his jaw until it feels like he couldn’t keep his neck from snapping. Harry is grinning at him, his hair pushed away from his face. Niall marvels at how young he looks, the sun behind him and his face twisted into the most glorious smile he’s ever seen. 

He reaches out, Harry’s fingers stretching towards him. Niall laughs back, fighting against the wave of hesitation to uncurl his fingers from the chain. His palms are sweating but he’s holding onto the metal for dear life, like if he lets go he’ll just keep falling into the water. 

“Niall!” Harry says again, like it’s the only thing he can say. Niall sucks in a breath, his chest expanding with cold rushing air and lets go. 

Their fingers barely touch, hooking together for a moment before the momentum drags them away from each other again. Niall reaches for him again, desperate to somehow keep hold of him. 

Harry throws his head back again, laughs up into the sky. 

The ride starts to slow down and Niall’s disappointed as the sounds of the pier flood back -- the melodic music, the yells of the children behind him. Harry’s still laughing to himself, his shoulders heaving. Niall catches his breath as the floor raises up to meet them and he’s vibrating, everything inside him switched to _on_ and _go_. There’s indents in his palms and they smell like iron and dirt but he ignores it, his stomach feeling jittery as he looks wildly over at Harry. 

His legs feel like jelly, nothing solid from the waist down to hold him up as he stumbles out of his seat but Harry’s there to catch him, his arms solid and reassuring around his back as he clutches him back just as tight. 

*

“The library came round today again,” Liam says, his voice carrying across their section of the ward. 

Niall glances up from his magazine. It’s a new music one, the chords of classic Beatles songs written out in little diagrams of where to place your fingers. After Bressie had gone, Niall had taught himself the guitar off these magazines, copying the diagrams out onto paper until he could do it with his left hand. It comes more naturally now, but sometimes it’s nice to learn something new. “Yeah?”

Liam nods, licks yoghurt from the top of the pot. Niall feels guilty about wondering how he’s still here. “I got you this.”

Niall reaches forward to help him as he leans down into the locker below his bedside cabinet. It’s a bulky box and it takes a moment for Niall to realise what it is. “They had this?”

Liam nods, smile growing across his face. “It’s a puzzle. They’ve finally realised that no one here wants to read crappy novels above love and living happily ever after.”

Niall snorts and stares at the box. It’s huge, the picture of a pier and a fairground stretching out until it’s the sun setting over the sea. The sun is reflected in the water, sending lilacs and blues sweeping together. There’s a faint hue of pink and Niall’s never seen a sunset like it. 

The lights are painted onto the pier, the Ferris Wheel twinkling. 

“Thought you’d like it. You haven’t stopped talking about your friend after your trip to the seaside.”

Niall feels a stab of guilt. He should’ve taken Liam with them -- he _is_ his carer after all. Liam grins at him again, as if he can read his mind and Niall feels more at ease. 

“Yeah,” Niall says, clearing his throat. “He’d like this. Thank you.”

Liam shrugs bashfully, licking the back of his spoon. There’s a growing stack of those crappy books Liam’s been talking about on his bedside too. Niall’s not sure if he’s even touched them. 

“Do you want to have a go with it first?” Niall asks, watching as Liam pulls his knees up in front of him. It makes him look bigger, like he’s a rock under the thin hospital blanket. He’s wearing the red jumper again. He looks bright even though Niall can see the purple of his veins snaking over his wrist when he clenches his fist.

“Oh no,” Liam shakes his head. He looks faintly amused for a moment. “I won’t have time to finish it. This is Harry’s one. He sounds like he has the time.”

Niall’s stomach drops out. It always comes down to time. “Of course you have the time. You doing anything else I don’t know about?”

Liam laughs. “I’m too busy dying, Niall.”

Niall nearly drops the puzzle. “Liam. Don’t talk like that.”

“No,” he says. “I’m fine with it. I think I’m actually ready. I’ve been lingering for too long. All my friends are gone, Sophia’s gone.”

Niall feels the back of his throat burn. Liam’s alone. Niall will be too soon. 

“You’ve been a good carer, Nialler,” Liam says easily. He reaches across and grips at Niall’s forearm. “I’m not sure if you get to hear that a lot but I know that everyone you’ve cared for would back me up.”

“Thanks,” Niall says, not surprised that his voice sounds choked up. He looks at Liam, smiles and hopes Liam understands that he’s grateful for more than the puzzle. 

Liam smiles back and reaches for another yoghurt. 

*

“I got you a present,” Niall tells Harry, reaching into the back of the car. 

Harry looks pleased for a moment before he laughs easily. “I need to get you one then, too.”

“You haven’t even seen it yet,” Niall says, hand gripping around the corner of the box. 

“I know it will be good,” Harry says confidently. “If it’s from you.”

Niall laughs, feeling slightly flustered. He pushes the box into Harry’s hand and tries to ignore how the windows are steaming up around them now, the entire world outside the car fading away until it’s just the two of them left. 

Now that Liam’s gone, he’s had more time to visit Harry on his time off from caring for Louis. They haven’t really done much -- Niall took Harry into the nearest town so he could trawl through the tiny charity shop for a new shirt. He asked Niall not to look, his face going coy so Niall had spent twenty minutes pretending to be interested in the worn paperbacks stacked near the door until Harry was finished. 

He has a feeling that Harry’s wearing his new shirt now, slightly threadbare from the previous owner’s use but bright and unusual for what Niall’s seen him in before. It makes him look more defined, his eyes bright. 

“What is it?” Harry asks once Niall hands him the box. It’s bulky and Niall wishes for a moment he had done this outside -- even in the drizzle -- because it pushes them apart, the puzzle taking up the entire width of the middle console and handbrake. 

“Open it,” Niall encourages. 

Harry looks nervous for a moment. “I’ve never had anything in wrapping paper before.”

Niall swallows. Neither has he. They hadn’t been big on presents at the farm and they weren’t really allowed them in school. He had seen the paper when he was filling his car with petrol a few days ago and it’s a cheap thing, Niall’s seen nicer through the windows of shops on the high street but it felt right to pick it up. Niall had struggled to wrap it, trying to remember how Paul had sometimes wrapped things for the Post Office, tight lines and folds until the box was neatly packaged. It had seemed like so long ago. 

Niall smiles at him, nudges the edge of the box closest to him. Harry unwraps the box as if it’s precious and it makes Niall nervous and happy in equal measure. “It’s not that impressive,” Niall warns him. “Just rip it off.”

Harry’s quiet for a moment and Niall fights the urge to start picking at his fingers with his teeth. He doesn’t like it, Niall thinks with a sinking heart. But Harry smiles at him then, his face gone a little watery. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly, one hand coming up over the bulky edge to the box to touch the top of the ferris wheel. “Really.”

“You’re welcome.”

Harry leans in, the box falling lopsided into his lap. The corner digs into Niall’s stomach as he leans in too. Niall’s heart beats frantically as Harry looms towards him, his hair a shaggy mess over one shoulder and his mouth turning into a big smile. 

He kisses him on the cheek, his palm warm on his jaw to keep him close. Niall closes his eyes, savours it. He wants more but he also doesn’t want to push -- this new friendship, this new beginning -- still feels so tentative and fragile. 

“Do you want to come inside?” Harry asks him, pulling away and suddenly looking a little shy. He smiles bashfully down at the box again. “We can make a start on it.”

“Sure,” Niall finds himself saying, already reaching for the door handle. 

Harry takes a moment to climb out of the car and then he’s running across the carpark to get inside without getting soaked with the rain. Niall finds himself laughing, drops hitting his cheeks and running down the side of his nose. 

The hospital is one of the nicer ones, far nicer than Louis’s. The walls are painted a cheery yellow and Harry has a room of his own halfway down a long bright corridor filled with windows. 

The bedspread folded neatly at the bottom of his bed is from Meadowside and Niall pauses when he sees it, jarred by the fact that he remembers it so vividly. Harry would wrap it around his shoulders some mornings when it was particularly cold in the house and wear it to breakfast. 

Harry grins at him, sits down on the edge of the mattress and looks up at him expectantly. “Well?”

“It’s nice,” Niall says quietly. “Homey.”

Harry nods and glances around the place. “It is home.”

Niall ignores the twinge in his stomach and thinks to his tiny grey flat. It’s never felt like home. 

Harry gets up then and sets the box with the puzzle on the floor below a high bookshelf. “The floor is probably the only thing big enough,” Harry reasons as he props the lid of the box up against the skirting board so they’ll be able to see the picture. 

Harry tips some of the pieces out onto the floor, spreads them around so he can see each colour and shape. He beams at Niall from there, glancing over his shoulder just because he knows that Niall’s going to be watching him. 

Niall laughs, glancing away at being caught. It always feels like he’s doing that -- staring and being caught. Harry goes a little pink, smiling bashfully like he likes it. 

The room is full of Harry’s things -- stacks of books and a rail of clothing that Niall doesn’t recognise. There’s a book open on the bed, the spine cracked and the pages a creamy white. There’s writing on the top half of the first page, the writing spidery and sprawling. 

Harry catches him looking and he crawls to his feet, his arm reaching out to Niall for a hoist up. His fingers are cold when Niall grips them. “I still have them all.”

“You still write?” Niall asks, feeling that it’d be too bold to reach out and take a proper look. Harry gives his forearm a squeeze and gestures to it, as if to say _go for it._

“They don’t seem like stories anymore,” Harry says thoughtfully. “I used to get so frustrated when they never read like stories. They’d get stuck.” Niall takes the book into his hand, the hard binding feeling weighty in his grip. Harry doesn’t sound nervous. More curious with himself, like he’s spent a while thinking about it. “But I think they’re more like songs.”

Niall doesn’t know what to say. There’s a stack of them on the cabinet beside his bed, all the same leather binding, presumably full of Harry’s scrawling songs. 

“Jeff gets me them pretty regularly,” Harry jabbers on, like he wants -- needs -- to fill Niall in on all he’s missed. They have so much to catch up on. “I’ve been filling them quicker now. Now that --” he pauses, looks shy when Niall glances to him. “Just been feeling more inspired recently.”

Niall hums. “We can,” he says, feeling that swoopy, watery feeling in the pit of his stomach as Harry looks up at him. He looks so open. Like Niall could read every single thing Harry thinks and feels in the book in his hand. He hardly has to, Niall can read it on his face. Niall thinks of his guitar sitting back in his cold bedroom. “We can sing them if you want?”

Harry closes his eyes and his smile is so gentle. Niall knows he’s thinking of how they sometimes used to dance in the kitchen while the kettle boiled and Niall finished the dishes. Their voices weaving together in harmonies that came naturally to them. Niall hasn’t sang like that in years. 

“We could do that,” Harry says gently, as if he’s nervous at the thought of admitting how much he wants it. Niall feels something flutter in his gut at the prospect. “We could --” Harry stops himself, shaking his head slightly. Niall watches as he flexes his hand.

“What?” Niall asks, cocking his head. He doesn’t want Harry to feel like he can’t say anything to Niall. 

“What if,” Harry pauses to take a deep breath and then says all in a rush. “What if Louis is right and that the deferrals are real? We could find out if Mr Simon has an address. If he could give us one or get us an application or write us a recommendation or something.”

Niall finds it hard to tamp down the initial thrill of excitement, his mind running away with him the bigger Harry beams at him. If it was real, they could have so much extra time. Harry’s doing so well, they’d stop him where he is. 

Hit a pause button. Stop time. 

“We’d just need to prove that we --” Harry’s breathless, so eager for his plan. He waves a hand between them and then at the book on the bed. “We just need to show that to him. That’s us. That’s us right there in that book. That’s me, so that’s you too.”

Niall opens his mouth, tries to calm his breathing. Harry looks so desperate and Niall can feel it. Can feel the importance weighing down on them. 

“We can sing to him,” Niall tells him and then reaches for him, Harry’s relieved face emblazoned into Niall’s mind for the rest of his short eternity. 

Niall pulls him into a hug, still getting used to how he can touch him now. How he can feel him under his palms after all these years. How Harry touches him back. How he’s allowed to feel the heat of someone’s body without it being over a railing on a hospital bed, how he can touch someone without it being because he has to dress a wound or soothe a bad dream. 

Harry smells like the kitchen back at Meadowside, earthy and warm. Niall breathes him in. 

“We can try.” 

*

“Hey,” Louis says, catching Niall’s wrist when he reaches up to pull the blinds. The sun is being funny today -- too cool to actually feel like it’s the summertime but sharp and bright enough to be blinding. The little alcove Louis has been moved into dims as the blinds pull closed. 

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs. Louis hasn’t really been talking today, dosing in and out of sleep because of the medicine. His grip is weak and his fingers chilled. Niall pats him on the hand and feels how his knuckles are sticking up. 

“You can go, you know?” Louis says and it really does sound like a question. “I don’t need you anymore.”

“Of course you do,” Niall says, ignoring how his throat cinches tight. He tries so hard not to get attached to the donors he looks after so he doesn’t have to feel this onslaught of emotion every time they grow closer to completion. Niall pats at Louis’s hand again, gives him a squeeze. It’s not really working this time -- Niall doesn’t think there would be any way on earth he could compartmentalise when it’s Louis. 

He’s not quite sure how he’ll cope when he does it with Harry. 

“Niall,” Louis says, his mouth twisting up into a gaunt smile. It’s thin but there’s still some of the same cheekiness in there somewhere. Worn away as Louis has got weaker, seeping out of his blood with every pint he donates. 

Niall mimics him, cocks his head to the side. “ _Louis_.”

Louis laughs. A sharp wheeze of breath that makes him wince. 

“Seriously,” Louis tells him, pale face growing serious. “There’s no need to wait for me. I know this is my last one. You can just go now.”

Niall stares at him. “Don’t be silly.” He tries to play it off like Louis is joking but it comes out a bit choked. Louis turns his hand, grips at Niall’s fingers. 

“I don’t deserve to have company,” Louis says quietly, his grip tightening. “After what I did.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t matter now.”

“Do you promise me?” 

Niall frowns. “Of course I do,” he says, patting at his hand again. His skin feels clammy. Like he’s already going under. 

Louis shakes his head, his hair rustling against the stiff bedding. “No. Do you promise me you’ll go to him? He should have you now. You should be together.”

Niall feels his chin wobble. And he so suddenly wants to cry that he’s shocked he didn’t feel it creeping up on him. “Louis,” is all he can say but Louis is smiling at him, eyes slightly glassy but otherwise uneffected. 

“C’mere,” he says quietly, his voice raking over the words. Niall should get him a glass of water or try and barter with the ward staff to let him eat something. He shouldn’t be crawling up onto the bed and into the thin embrace of Louis’s arms. 

“I promise,” Niall whispers, pressing his lips to the rough patch of skin just below Louis’s jaw. 

Louis gives him a weak squeeze and Niall doesn’t get off the bed until they call for him. Their breaths slow and matching and even. 

“Go now,” Louis tells him, his head rolled back into the pillow to watch him as they unclick the lock on the wheels and start rolling him out of the ward. “Go see him. Don’t wait.” 

Niall watches his pulse pump low on his distended throat. He nearly counts it. One. Two. Three. He doesn’t know how many more times it will thump today. The vein looking stark and purple against his pale skin.

Niall nods at him, tries to smile. His eyes slide down to his throat again. 

“I’ll be fine,” Louis tells him again but this time there’s a thread of panic in it. Niall nods again. He can’t find any words inside himself, all of them locked up tight in his chest. It’s like it’ll all explode out of him if he tries to open his mouth. He wants to say thank you. He wants to tell Louis he loves him too. 

He wants to say goodbye and how this isn’t fair and fuck the fucking government and the scientists and the Originals. 

He wants to never have to do this again. This bit is too hard. 

Niall can see the doors up ahead of him -- the ones with the blacked out windows and the yellow caution stickers. The ones where only the doctors are allowed to go. The end of the road. Louis looks up, sees them too and his smile is sharp, his eyes focused. 

Niall lunges forward, elbowing a nurse out of the way to squeeze his hand. It feels cold already. 

“Give Harry my love,” Louis says, his fingers going slack in Niall’s grip. He’s holding something in his fist, the edges of it crumpled in his sweaty hand. His fingers uncurl, his arm falling to the side as Niall lets go. 

Niall finally cracks. “Louis,” is all he can manage before the bed is wheeled straight through the doors, the nurse elbowing Niall back against the wall. 

The doors swing shut, a soft fwomp of a sound of the doorstop against the shiny floor. There’s no clack of the wheel, no beep of the heart monitor. Niall’s ears feel stuffed full of cotton wool with just the faint buzz of the fluorescent lights above him on the ceiling. 

On the floor, lies the crinkled edge of the photograph strip. Niall stoops to pick it up, looks away quickly from Louis’s bright smile. 

Niall sits -- stunned -- in the waiting room. He told Louis that he’d go straight away, that he wouldn’t wait but Niall finds himself folded into the corner chair beside the window, the rain running in rivulets down the grubby glass. Outside the world has gone a grey colour, the earlier sunshine forgotten. 

A nurse comes and gets him an hour later, a clipboard in her hand. Niall signs it with a shaky hand. 

And that’s it. 

He’s gone. 

 

*

The drive to the Donation Centre is short. Niall can’t believe he’s lived this close to Harry all this time. He supposes they were never really destined to spread out far anyway, limited to the reassuring radius that Briar Hill had instilled in them. Niall thinks of the fence around the school sometimes, looming high above them. And the out of bounds green fields that stretched out beyond it. No scarier than the tennis courts or the cricket grounds they played in all day. 

Niall marks out his day easily now. He gets up, has a banana or some cereal and then drives to Harry. 

They have brunch in his room, Niall making sure Harry takes all his medicines and eats all his fruit. Sometimes they have eggs and on Fridays Niall can have bacon. In the afternoon, they’ll go for a walk or they’ll sit down and play Scrabble, try and build the sprawling five thousand piece jigsaw across the floor or help each other write. Niall will worry about Harry kneeling on the cold tiles, the back of his thin paper hospital gown flapping open and giving Niall an eyeful of his his pale back. Harry will make Niall tea just how he remembers he took it all those years ago in Briar Hill or Meadowside. He’ll tuck a chocolate biscuit on the side, as if Niall hadn’t bought the biscuits himself because Harry’s not allowed out on his own anymore. 

After dinner, Harry will get back into bed when he finally admits that he’s getting tired and Niall will sit beside him and read or he’ll shift until he’s leaning half his weight on the mattress and watch Harry laugh at the television. 

Once, he climbs in. He feels the heat of Harry pressed against him and the thump of his heartbeat under his palm. Harry’s breath is hot against his cheek and when Niall turns his head, his mouth is wet against his. 

Harry breathes his name and Niall sinks into it. Wonders how he lasted so long without it. Fleetingly, he thinks of Zayn. Of how they used to press together under the thin sheets in Niall’s bedroom. How it felt so new and foreign and strange. 

This time, it feels warm and intense and like something inside him is being squeezed tight. 

Harry laughs as he strips him, his fingers fumbling with Niall’s buttons and the zips in his jeans. The bed isn’t big enough for both of them, the mattress lumpy and digging into his back as Harry rolls them over, his weight spread over Niall’s thighs. 

It feels strange to be doing this when it’s still light outside. Sex still makes Niall nervous -- like it’s still something to be ashamed of or something he shouldn’t be allowing himself. 

Harry loves it though, his face going bright and open and happy with each new spot of skin he reveals. He presses his lips to it, to everywhere, to the jut of Niall’s hip and to the thin skin over his ribs. He brushes his hands up his sides, pushes his thumbs into his armpits and into the firm muscle of his biceps. He skims his hands over the flat of Niall’s stomach, ducking to mouth at his bellybutton and the patch of rough hair under it. All the spots that make Niall flush with thinly veiled embarrassment.

“Niall,” he breathes into his skin, his lips moving hot and wet over Niall’s hip. It makes Niall feel alive, his skin alight with sensation. “Touch me,” Harry mumbles, his tone turning slightly petulant. 

Niall blinks, reassured by how much Harry _wants_ this too. That it’s not just Niall buzzing out of his skin at the prospect of being close with someone. 

Despite the reassurance, Niall’s hands still shake, he’s that nervous. He’s got them hovering by his sides, working himself up to just _touch_. He swallows, his throat raw and tight. He feels too hot. Outside, the sun shines through the clouds and it’s distracting. Niall had thought all of this would happen under the cover of darkness where they could maybe pretend it didn’t happen if it didn’t work out. 

“Hey,” Harry says gently, crawling up the bed. He looks flushed, his skin slightly clammy and sweaty. Niall has to remind himself that Harry is _sick_. That they shouldn’t be doing this. “Come on. C’mere.”

Niall swallows again, forces himself to meet Harry’s gaze. It’s gentle, none of the judgement that Niall’s been fearing. He knows that Harry knows what he’s doing -- he’d listened to him for years. In comparison, Niall’s time with Zayn had been too short. Niall’s so inexperienced. 

“Please,” Harry says, so soft. “Touch me.”

Niall gasps a breath and Harry takes the chance to kiss him softly, pushing his mouth against Niall’s with a practised ease. Niall falls into it, licks into Harry’s mouth to chase the heat of his tongue. 

It’s nothing like Niall ever imagined it would be with Harry -- in those few and infrequent times when he allowed his mind to wander self indulgently. But it’s _real_. 

Niall tries to commit every bit to his memory. Tries to store it all away for when he can’t have it anymore. The hair at Harry’s nape is warm and soft and sweaty when he sinks his hands into it, drawing him closer. Harry leans down, settling his weight and rolling his hips to meet Niall’s. Niall bucks up, needing that friction. 

He can feel the ridge of Harry’s latest scar -- raised slightly because it’s hasn’t properly healed yet. Niall brushes his fingers over it gently, listening to how Harry gasps in a breath, his own hand pressing harder to where he’s gripping at Niall’s arm. 

“Here,” Harry mumbles, rolling away to lean off the bed. His skin looks pale and patchy, parts of his legs and back too dry. Niall takes a moment to breathe, feeling exposed as he lies down the middle of the bed, Harry’s bare arse pressing into his thigh as he rummages through the bedside locker. 

When he comes back, Harry’s got a glint in his eye and a sticky bottle in his hand. He kisses him again, sloppy and desperate but Niall finds the feeling catching -- like he’s feverish with the urgent need to never stop kissing too.

The plastic snicks when Harry opens the lid, he rolls onto his side but his front is still pressed up against Niall’s side because the bed is that small. He looks so relaxed, drizzling lube onto his fingers. Niall’s only used hands and mouths before. He’s never had to use anything extra.

Niall must look alarmed because when Harry next looks up, his gaze softens. “Niall, hey,” he whispers, leaning forward. He smears a splotch of cool lube over his hip as he reaches to balance himself. Niall shudders -- cringing -- but Harry’s still smiling calmly. “Nothing too scary,” he promises him, dipping for another kiss. Niall chases it. “Just wet.” 

Harry hardly pulls away, his nose rubbing against the side of Niall’s. He feels so close, all consuming. Niall reaches for him, running a hand down over the flat of his arse to pull him closer. Harry grins, sweeps his slicked hand over Niall’s dick making him buck up into his touch and Niall’s head is a jumble of sensation for a long moment. Harry’s hand on him and how Niall's hand is on Harry’s _arse_ , slipping and sliding as he hauls him close. Finally taking what he wants.

Harry comes with a hand around them both, so slick and tight that Niall thinks he might die right here in Harry’s bed, his donations bedamned. Harry shakes with it, his skin hot and sweaty as he shudders above him, his grip faltering. “Niall,” he pants, short huffs of breath that cools against the patches of sweat on Niall’s jaw. His mouth searches for Niall, kissing up his cheek and under his eye socket. 

Niall hooks a leg up over Harry’s knee, humps against his thigh and the edge of Harry’s hand, still slick with sticky lube. It's too loud. The bed shakes and creaks and a nurse’ll be in to throw Niall out soon but Niall’s racing towards it too quickly to feel self conscious. 

Harry laughs with him, his hand coming up sticky and covered with come to cup around Niall’s jaw, drawing him in for a messy kiss. Niall gasps, his tongue coming out to lick across the rough pad of Harry’s thumb and then he feels it ricochet down his spine -- that blissful mix of sharp and warm and rolling and indescribable brightness that he’s been half denying himself recently as he comes against the crease of Harry’s thigh. 

Harry sighs, his eyes already fluttering closed. He looks pale under the sheen of sweat, his limbs gangly and numb as he curls tiredly around Niall. He looks exhausted and worn out. Niall feels like another round, his skin tight and buzzing.

Niall settles beside him, allowing himself a moment to bask in it and soak in how Harry feels this close because he knows that his bed will be extra cold back in the flat tonight without him. 

*

“You should bring your guitar,” Harry tells him as they scribble out words in Harry’s notebooks and make new songs out of the drips and drabs of sentences Harry’s pondered weeks over. Harry’s voice sounds rough sometimes, dragging over the words as they sing quietly together. 

Niall’s voice has never sounded so shockingly clear. 

“I will,” Niall promises him, lifting a hand to sink it into the length of hair behind Harry’s ear. It’s long, curling down onto his chest as he sits against his pillows. He’d been noticing how Harry had been getting more and more frustrated with it recently, tugging it back with his fingers into stumpy ponytails at the back of his head. Niall likes it, it looks so different to everyone else on the ward. Like he isn’t speeding towards his final donation.

They haven’t done much today -- their puzzle forgotten in the corner of the room and Harry’s half eaten plate of eggs stacked on top of Niall’s on the bench. There’s a show about expensive heirlooms and pretty paintings on the television and Niall’s been watching it, his brain slowly shutting down because he’s so bored. Why do people care about how much an old clock is worth anyway? Is this what normal people fill their lives with when they don’t have to worry about completing?

“Good,” Harry says quietly, squeezing his fingers around Niall’s wrist to bring his palm to his mouth. His mouth is warm and soft as he kisses it. Niall smiles at him, crawling gently onto the bed with him. 

Harry shifts to make room for him, the television clicking over to mute in the corner. The picture must change suddenly because it illuminates Harry in a different light and he looks sallow, his skin pale and peaky. 

Niall tries not to hesitate when he leans into his chest, his mouth finding Harry’s easily. They kiss for a long while, Niall sinking into Harry the longer he runs his hands up Niall’s back, making him melt and go boneless. 

“Because I want to practise,” Harry says, his voice rough again. His top lip brushes against Niall’s mouth, dragging across Niall’s barely there stubble. 

“Hmm?” Niall hums, still focused on Harry’s mouth and his hands a gentle weight against his hips. It’s the middle of the day and they shouldn’t really be getting into bed together but Niall’s finding it harder to care about what the nurses think or if he’s doing his paperwork correctly. 

Harry’s took up every space in his life now. He’s there in every thought he has. 

Harry huffs a quiet laugh, drawing back slightly. “We should practise. For the deferral.”

Niall’s heart thumps. The deferral. 

When he opens his eyes, Harry’s looking at him and his expression is soft, cheeks hanging slightly. This close Niall can see his pores and the dark circles under his eyes. He can see the breakout of spots around his nose, the patches of dry skin across his jaw. His stubble has stopped properly growing. 

Niall hopes his smile looks genuine. “Yes,” he says softly, pressing in for a kiss he selfishly hopes distracts Harry from the wobble in his voice. “We should practise.”

*

Later, Niall will wonder if Louis was right. If donors just _know_ when it’s going to happen. He’ll think of Zayn’s face as he stepped towards the van, all those years ago, so sure and set in the future when he was so young. He isn’t sure how he’ll forget it. He’ll think of Louis’s cool hands and Liam’s grin when he’d made his peace with it. 

He’ll think of Harry. He’ll always think of Harry. 

It’s shorter visiting hours on Sunday, Niall never really understands why. It’s just another day. His beeper won’t start going off until after ten but the nurses like to have them out just after dinner. Niall’s been pushing and pushing the limits, breaking the speed limit to get home in time before pain shoots up his arm. 

He ignores the pitying looks from the nurses now, selfishly accepts how they’ve stopped asking him to leave now. There’s no real point. Niall doesn’t go until he absolutely has to. 

Sometimes -- when he crawls into his cold and empty bed at home -- he wishes he had the bed next to Harry. That he had gotten his notice already. 

“Are you sure you want me to do it?” Niall asks him, scissors weighing heavy in his hand as Harry sinks into the chair in front of him. 

It’s raining today, so they can’t explore the gardens together. Harry’s been getting sore with the cold, his throat scratchy and chest tight so Niall’s taken to wrapping him up in scarves and cardigans and making him honey and orange syrupy tea when the nurses aren’t looking. He tastes sweet when Niall kisses him now, tugging him back for seconds. 

“Yes,” Harry insists, reaching back to blindly pat at his hip. “I trust you the most.”

Niall snorts, sinking his fingers into the thick mane of Harry’s hair. It’s gotten so long, the curls giving way to gravity so it falls far below his shoulders. 

Harry tips his head down, exposing the back of his neck. They had spent the morning hunting for enough elastic bands to tie his hair into long plaits and Niall gets to work, his fingers working in the pattern Harry had taught him. It takes a while for his hair to be tamed into them, the gnarls and knots tangling easily around Niall’s fingertips. 

“Ready?” Niall asks, rubbing his thumb over the soft skin at the nape of Harry’s neck that he rarely gets to see. It seems paler. More fragile. Niall bends down and presses his lip to it. Feels where it’s reassuringly warm. 

Harry shivers, his shoulders rolling. “Always.”

The first cut seems loud, the blades slicing through the thick twist of hair. It comes off with a resounding _snip_. Harry’s hair looks blunt, the majority of it coming away with Niall’s hand. It makes him gasp, a roll of revulsion at how powerful it makes him feel. “Gosh, Harry.”

Harry laughs, reaching back to see. Niall passes him the plait. It feels disconcertingly heavy in his palm and Niall doesn’t understand -- it’s just _hair_. “Wow,” Harry breathes, his voice sounding awed. 

“I know,” Niall mutters, working the blades through the second plait. It feels easier to do this one, like now Niall’s broken the dam he can’t stop. It comes off with a sharp slice of the scissors and the stump of hair left attached to Harry fans out against Niall’s wrist. 

“I hope they like it.” Harry murmurs once Niall’s passed him all of the plaits. His hair looks uneven but it’s short, cut close to the scalp so Harry can donate as much as he can. It makes Niall’s throat feel tight -- that this is making him _happy_. 

Niall brushes his thumb over the shorn ends of Harry’s hair -- he’ll have to run the razor over it to make it even. He’ll match everyone else now. “They will. This will make such a difference to someone’s life.”

Harry gives him a beaming smile, his eyes shiny. He looks exhausted for a moment as he stares down at the hair in his lap -- a product of the last few years of growth. Niall keeps his hand reassuringly on his shoulder until Harry twists in the chair, lifting his chin for a kiss. 

Niall cradles his jaw, works his tongue into his mouth and tries to fight the feeling that this is the beginning of the end. 

Harry lines the plaits up on his bedside table, some of them hanging over the edge. Niall doesn’t look at them, feeling unsettled. It had seemed that Harry had been working so hard about donating his hair. Nearly looking forward to it. He sort of looks a little sad about it now, his face carefully blank as he runs his fingers over the fluffy edges of the plaits. Niall watches as he lifts his hand nervously to his head, hesitating a moment before he rubs his hand through the short edges of his hair now. 

Niall thinks he’ll bring the guitar tomorrow to cheer him up. 

“Why today?” Niall asks, holding back the blankets for Harry to climb in. It had seemed spontaneous, Harry dragging him away from the jigsaw on the floor underneath the window and handing him a pair of scissors. They’ve nearly finished -- the horizon meeting the skyline in varying shades of blue, the little houses in the distance slotting into place until it looks more and more like a complete picture.

Harry shuffles to the far edge, looking smaller than usual against the pillow without his hair splaying over it. He looks younger too. 

Harry’s face is soft and open. His bottom lip looks full and pink and Niall knows it’s from where he had kissed him for a long time earlier. Until their mouths were sore. 

Niall sinks into the space beside him, cups his palm around Harry’s cheek. He’s flushed, his skin hot. Niall kisses him. Hopes he gets a cold. 

“You know I’m happy we got this time together,” Harry tells him quietly later. Niall is quiet too. Not sure what to say. Outside, the rain batters down against the window and Niall isn’t looking forward to making his way home. 

Harry smiles again, cheeks dimpling. “We’ve loved each other for so long.”

“All our lives,” Niall whispers, feeling the pieces all click into place inside himself. Fitting together like they were made to fit. Harry closes his eyes, bottom lip sucking into his mouth. He presses his forehead to Niall’s shoulder and Niall finds his hand under the covers. 

“I’m happy we got any time at all.” 

*

*

*

The drive to Harry’s Donation Centre is short. 

But long enough for a young mother to crash her car into a tree thirteen miles east. Long enough for her car to go up in flames and for her to be dragged from the wreck. Long enough for them to decide that she deserved a skin graft and that Harry would be the perfect match. 

His room is empty when Niall gets there, a new jar of honey under his arm and the guitar slung over his back. He feels a bit damp from the run from the car, the heavens still bucketing down. 

The lamp on his bedside table is on, pale glowy light shining down on the little row of plaits still lined up along the edge. The television is off for once and when Niall steps into the corner, he can see the nearly completed puzzle. 

With shaky fingers he picks up the last piece, a bit of bright blue sky. Clear like the sun has been out all day. It fits in along the horizon and it isn’t until he’s got it fitted into its spot does he realise it’s not sky at all and that it’s part of the ocean. 

Niall’s lips feel salty. And the floor cold against his knees. 

They tell him that he wasn’t strong enough to fight infection. That his heart started to fail so they did what was best. That it had been working on him for days. 

That it was time. 

They hold paperwork out in front of him for him to sign. Everything that mattered to Harry’s entire life limited down to a few pages of low quality printer paper. The nib of the pen rips through the bottom and it hardly looks like Niall’s signature at all. 

And then it’s done. 

It’s over. 

***

It’s sunny, today. Summer has properly started. Niall parks his car near an old lamp post, his front wheel curved too close to the curb. The sun makes him squint as he steps out onto the street, already feeling too warm in a coat that is too big around his shoulders. The collar still smells of Harry so he doesn’t take it off. 

It’s been nearly three weeks since Niall lost him, eighteen days and a handful of hours. Niall’s counting a different time now. Time _since_. 

The village still looks familiar even though he hasn’t been here in a long time. The Post Office is still on the corner, a bunch of bright daffodils in the window. The sign must have been newly painted -- it’s so red. He finds himself glancing around for any sign of Paul’s van, the rusted door and the tinted windows. 

No one pays him much attention as he walks down the little street. He doesn’t look like a donor. Not yet. He will soon -- his letter came yesterday. 

He’ll not be able to do this soon. There will be no more chances to just go where he wants. He has to give up his little flat, another carer coming to take his place. Someone younger, their life stretching out in front of him. His car is being taken off him too, he’s got no need for it at the Donation Centre. 

He didn’t sleep much last night -- or the seventeen before it -- tossing and turning in his cold sheets as his mind ran over who would get what. How he could be divided. What person would get to live on another few years with Niall’s kidneys and his liver. Would his heart still yearn for a deferral in another person’s body? 

He’d found himself getting into his car as soon as he could, the predawn light grey as he set out towards Meadowside brightening with every mile closer he got. His banana for breakfast is still sitting in the passenger seat. 

The sun glares across the window as he comes to a stop in front of it. There’s a sign in the window, a little grubby from years of wear and tear. _Horan Family Butchers. Come in. We’re OPEN._

Niall can see a figure through the window, the striped burgundy apron and the crisp white shirt. Maybe he’ll get something from Niall in a few weeks time. A lung or a piece of his colon. Inside, the man turns around and Niall wonders if he’d even look any different with a pair of new eyes.

Niall takes a breath. He’s got nothing to lose. Not anymore. 

The bell tinkles softly as he pushes the door open. The butcher glances up.


End file.
